posted on: September 23, 2015
author: Brian Lomax, Ed.D.
Do you like to win? Of course you do, right? Perhaps you think that’s a silly question for me to pose, but what if I told you that while most athletes say they want to win, their behavior often says something entirely different. It says that mistakes and being perfect are more important to them than winning. Their focus isn’t fully on the long term goal; it’s stuck in the past. Because of that, they aren’t able to perform their best throughout the competition.
Let’s use the sport of tennis to illustrate this behavior as its scoring system is particularly devilish. With a winner and loser on every single point, tennis players often fall into the trap of judging themselves based on the result of a point. Players may react emotionally and/or lose focus because of this. They become concerned with something they can’t change (the past) and therefore they bring less energy to what is in their control (the next point). Their behavior says that they care more about being perfect right now, and that winning the match is a lower priority. Most players think that the desire to be perfect and the desire to win go hand-in-hand. They don’t.
The total number of points won in a tennis match does not determine the winner, and neither does the total number of games. Winning sets is what matters, and therefore it is not necessary to win every single point. When you realize this and stop judging yourself after every point, you come to understand that the tennis scoring system is actually quite forgiving. It allows you to lose points with no real consequences on the scoreboard. How great is that?! You don’t have to be perfect! Lose a point – so what? Simply play better on the next one. The next point is always an opportunity to play better.
Getting comfortable with this perspective takes time, and so I want to show you two lists of behaviors that demonstrate what you value more while you are competing. These behaviors represent the extremes and you may see that you display behaviors from both lists at various times. Your goal is to enact more of the behaviors from the “want to win” list and fewer from the “want to be perfect” list.
If you want to win (play well), here is what you should do:
If you want to be perfect, here is what you will do:
I know that it may have been tough to read the behaviors on the “want to be perfect” list as we have all been there at some point, myself included, and will probably be there again in the future. However, with this new awareness, the point is to catch yourself in these behaviors and try to adjust them so that what you are doing on the court is helping you with the long-term mission of winning the match. If you play a sport other than tennis, the same concepts apply.
Behavior while competing isn’t always going to be perfect either, but strive to align your actions in competition with your desire to succeed. This perspective is what “playing to win” truly means and will make you a great competitor.
Dr. Brian Lomax founded PerformanceXtra™ in 2009 with a mission of helping athletes achieve their goals and their top performances more consistently through a progression of mental skills that enables them to focus on what is truly important.
Learn more about the author: https://performancextra.com/brian-lomax/