Failures Even With A Winning Attitude? Read This!

Badminton is a great sport, isn’t it? We all have played it somewhere at some point in our lives. Either it be playing it in winter evenings with our society friends and our siblings during vacations or searching for an extra racket, we all have done it. Also it provides a great exertion to our mind and the body but always with a positive feeling and joy.

Wait! How that is at all related to the topic. The reason for freshening up all those memories is to discover a new paradigm of inspiration derived from the example of this sport. One day, during my vacations, I was busy in a game in my neighbour’s ground. At some point of the game, I heard my mom calling me. Due to the match being at its final stage, I failed to respond to the call. I won the set and then thought of responding to it. But being in the heat of the game instantly I had an opponent challenging me, giving me no break after the set. The rushing adrenaline didn’t allow me to leave the challenge and the opportunity of playing again I got as a mandate of the consecutive wins. As the game preceded, I became curious to find out the reason for the call as I thought it was important.

So the catch here is that on one hand where the game is elating me and on the other hand I do have a source of distractions, my mind finds the best way out. It brought up a thought that said leaving the game at its beginning would tendto compromise with excitement and fun associated and also playing continuously won’t hadhelped me in responding and reaching out home, so the best way out was to play the game but not win it. It looks easy-peasy. Both the objectives completed with no complications to the brain. Now externally I was engrossed in the game and gave my full energy but my mind had already registered the result in the subconscious. Surprisingly, I lost the game with a close margin.

In the scenario when I am playing with the same opponent, without much of serious distractions, it is not that in the first instance my mind registers to winning the game but it shifts to a second feeling that admits to the feeling that I won’t let the opponent win. These both statements seem similar but the nuance is that the second statement states either the probabilities of you trying to win or at least draw the match. Now the probability of a match being drawn tends to zero so eventually you are awarded with victory and this actually happens. Everyone surely has memories of such incidents when they succeeded even though their entire focus was not on winning but on enjoying and not letting the problem or the opponent win.

What does this entire illustration brings for us. When you relate it with the reality, it is interesting how this interpretation stands affirm. Either it be students preparing for prestigious exams or an adult working all day long in office, real life examples stand strong in its support. Like for a student, you are doing well in class, studying good and also achieving better ranks in review tests but along with it you keep on doubting with issues like the syllabus being vast, brilliant competitors or the tough working condition and how to make through it. As a result the mind switches to the path as in the above illustration of the game and the result is negative. The intriguing part here is that neither you quit the competition nor you wasted your time, you were in the competition all through the course of time with a better performance and still you failed. But when the work is done with the attitude that whatever would be the result, I won’t let the competition beat me, a major responsibility shift occurs from taking them as burdens to enjoying the difficulties. And certainly this increases the chances of success.

In a nutshell, this article doesn’t discourages winning attitude but when analysed for long term and bigger goals it encourages introspecting goals with a shift in attention from the result to appreciating the work and your efforts and boosting oneself to defeat the barriers.