posted on: May 8, 2013
author: Brian Lomax, Ed.D.
Have you ever watched a game in which the team that was leading stopped playing to win in favor of protecting their lead? And what often happens in this situation? The team that is just protecting the lead ends up losing it. In football, we see this phenomenon with the “prevent” defense. In hockey and soccer, it often occurs when one team has a two goal lead. If you’ve been watching the 2013 NHL playoffs, you saw a classic example of this in the Montreal – Ottawa series in Game 4. The Canadiens had a 2-0 lead going into the 3rd period and went into lead protection mode. Fast forward to the end of the game – Senators win 3-2 in overtime. For the first half of the 3rd period, the Habs could only generate one shot on goal while giving up nearly 10. It’s no wonder they gave up the lead.
So what’s happening when teams or athletes protect a lead and let their opponents back in to the game? It’s rather simple actually. It’s the difference between playing to win and playing not to lose. Of course, everyone is familiar with those two concepts, but what may not be familiar is why athletes are in either play to win mode or play not to lose mode, and that comes down to whether there appears to be something to gain or something to lose.
When a team has the lead, the natural inclination is to begin to think about that lead and how they don’t want to relinquish it. They want to protect it. They don’t want to lose it. Their focus has shifted to loss prevention, and loss prevention leads to poorer performance. When you try not to make mistakes, you invariably make more mistakes. On the flip side, the team that is trailing begins to realize that they don’t have anything to lose and instead have everything to gain. They relax, they play more aggressively, take more risks and very often get back in the game. It’s a simple difference between viewing a situation as something to gain versus something to lose.
The lesson for athletes is to realize that these forces are at work and that you can change this default behavior. When you have a lead, don’t think about what you have to lose. Continue to think about what you have to gain. Remind yourself to play to win at all times because that’s when you play your best. We almost never perform our best when we’re playing not to lose. The prevent defense and protecting a lead in hockey or soccer are recipes for heartache. Those strategies may pay off at times, but a superior strategy is to keep playing your best by playing to win! Keep up the intensity and finish off your opponents. That’s what ultimate competitors do.
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/