Worthy Yet Not Chosen; 7 Truths You Need to Know
Maintaining a balanced self-concept after doing everything right but still losing out
Always a bridesmaid never a bride; No one remembers 2nd place; It’s all or nothing;
History doesn’t remember Vice Presidents; Ten feet from stardom;
I like you but…; Close but no cigar; Nice guys finish last;
If it was God’s will for you to have it, then you would already have it.
These sentiments and all their variations seem to pervade humanity. If not all of humanity, then definitely the broader culture here in the United States. I certainly have not been able to escape it. So much so that in recent years, I’ve set out to learn more about a winner’s mindset or the mindset of a champion. I really wanted to understand if there was something different about the mindset of a winner that I could integrate into my life because I have grown weary and tired of being on the losing end of opportunities and relationships that have truly mattered to me.
Not surprisingly this thirst for knowledge led me to sports and competition overall. There is nothing like competition that delineates winners from the rest of field. And who doesn’t want to be atop the field?
Competing is often the secret to many people’s success. Not just in a superficial terms either. Researchers at Gallup, studied individuals that were successful in their respective fields. What they learned is individuals focused their energy towards their strengths and delegated weaker areas to those that were stronger in those areas. Those researchers found 34 particular strengths that these individuals utilized and brought them success. Competition was one of them.
Competition is also fascinating. Not fascinating in terms of simply being interesting but fascinating as in a neurological state. Yes neurological. Our brains engage differently when we are fascinated. The National Institutes of Health tell us that fascination is defined as a state of intensive, extensive, and long-term concentration and vigilance, which continuously ‘feeds’ and energizes the cognitive system.
I first learned of fascination as a neurological state when I read a book called How the World Sees You: Discover Your Highest Value Through the Science of Fascination. The book details seven fascination languages. The language of excellence known as prestige fascinates us because it speaks to achieving success with higher standards. Competition is usually the means by which standards are established and even exceeded.
Not surprisingly those with a winner’s mindset tend to be ULTRA-competitive.
Competition of course is not limited to sports. It finds its way and captivates us, even unwittingly, in many if not all, facets of our lives. Those pervasive sentiments called out earlier minimally have an undercurrent of competition associated with them. So is adopting a winner’s mindset the answer to ending any losing streaks we may be experiencing?
Well let’s get circumspect about it as I believe the conversations we tend to have on the topic are rather incomplete and even misleading, leaving us in emotional distress, especially when we lose and lose repeatedly.
Competition can be a fair way to advance an individual or a team to the next level and ultimately on to the big prize. Competition can be a means of stretching ourselves beyond perceived limits and help us realize our full potential, in that iron sharpening iron kind of way. We would consider this to be healthy competition. On the other hand, unhealthy competition is more than being a sore loser or a braggadocious winner. I’d like to share SEVEN less talked about realities associated with competition that I believe could lessen our emotional distress when things end unfavorably for us.
Competition is steeped in a scarcity mindset. There is only ONE winner. ONE prize. And if there happens to be more than one prize, then the number of prizes is still very few. A scarcity mindset brings distress. A scarcity mindset blows circumstances and possibilities out of proportion. A scarcity mindset breeds desperation as everything is considered high stakes. The remedy of course for this is adopting an abundance mindset. I promise this paradigm shift eases emotional distress, almost immediately.
Losing happens, by design, more often than not. There are 30 MLB teams, 30 NBA teams, 32 NFL teams, 32 NHL teams, countless tennis players, golf players, Olympians etc. Yet there is only one league champion each season. One winner per competition. It is mathematically impossible for each team to have a winning record. Learning how to cope with losing and bounce back from it is the lesson to be learned here.
It really is an honor just being nominated. There are honorifics that come with competing. Oscar-nominated, Grammy nominated, silver medalist, bronze medalist, first runner-up, sectional champion, conference champion, etc. There is absolutely no reason to settle for the label of loser.
Winning is not always satisfying. Competition can be never ending. The goal post is always a moving target. I really do not want to hear anyone else ask MJ or LeBron? It is MJ, by the way. Ha-ha!! Winning one championship is never enough. Winning one gold medal is never enough. Something or someone always has to rise to the top and dominate. (Now y’all know how I feel about dominion).
These One Gotta Go games are annoying. Singer, Kelly Rowland was on the Terrell Show playing a game where she had to rank and eliminate her favorite songs from her time with the hit group, Destiny’s Child. It was a rather painstaking process. While I know it can be fun, these values get steeped into our psyche and become hard to shake. Usually the most satisfying value of all is giving it our all, win or lose.
Not everything is a competition. While competition can motivate us to do our best, we often find ourselves competing when we shouldn’t. Finding love and community are not competitions. Sharing the spotlight is not a loss. There is no award for who suffers more. Even competing with ourselves has its downsides. If we insist on competing when there is no competition, it’s usually self-destructive. We end up picking ourselves apart in a quest for perfection, which doesn’t exist. Sometimes the best thing we can do for ourselves is just be.
Being formidable garners respect. Believe it or not, not all wins are created equal. Easy wins are not respectable. Blowouts are boring for both the spectator and the contestant. Competitors want to be challenged by formidable opponents. Those who are formidable leave indelible marks on the competition. Halls of Fame are filled with those that did not win the big prize or even punch their tickets to the big game. Competitors even train together. Track and field is a huge example of this. Once formidable foes become highly sought after teammates. Our efforts don’t automatically go unnoticed just because we lose. We should identify more with our formidability than being on the losing side of a contest.
Winning is not indicative of worthiness. Probably the most pervasive and insidious adverse effect to competition is that idea that a win will solidify or establish our worthiness. That idea couldn’t be further from the truth. What is true is that our pursuit of our goals does not establish our worthiness; the pursuit of our goals is an expression of our worthiness. Furthermore the pursuit, the journey is indeed what is most transformational. Any wins absent a sense of worthiness and wins with misaligned character are wins that ring hollow. No one appreciates hollow victories.
To further punctuate the last point, I’m closing with a 60-second reel I created a while back after receiving yet another rejection email. Captions are included.
Onward to our inherent worthiness and Harmonious Balance, my friends!
Johanna
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