Appreciating the Defeat

I am so competitive that appreciating the defeat took me a long time to understand. I’ve been active in very competitive in sports all my life. In fact, if I don’t win first nothing else really matters– second place might as well be fourth.

Recently, I completed in a beach volleyball tournament whit someone I had only competed one other time with. We got 2nd in this recent tournament, losing to a girl I had once coached who is beginning her college career next year playing this sport.

I guess I should have been okay with losing to a younger stud who I helped develop, but I wasn’t. My partner played well given her new position and our collective lack of experience, but for some reason, I couldn’t get past the feeling that I should’ve won.

After the initial defeat, I did remember that we placed higher than the tournament before. And I improved on a lot of mistakes that I made earlier. The little things that I am doing now are putting myself in a better situation later in the future competition.

Then, I realized this is just like life. We must find the lessons in our defeat. Use those lessons to make us better. And look at the whole picture. We cannot worry about other’s successes.

What I should’ve realized is with everything else I’m juggling– new projects, family, clients– I didn’t do so bad against someone who is given more time to perfect their craft.

We usually compare ourselves to people we think are doing better without knowing the back story and sometimes even knowing it, we discredit our experiences and we shouldn’t. If nothing else, defeat keeps us humble and hungry for more.