We're all losing - because we focus too much on winning.
December 04, 2008 Filed in: Culture & Society
I’m sure you’ve heard the Vince Lombardi quote: “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”
It’s not my favorite quote. First off, because it’s not true, and secondly, because it encourages a mentality that’s very damaging in any relational environment.
Sure, in (most) sports, there’s a ‘winner’ and a ‘loser’. Sports is about competition, and they keep score, so that’s how it’s going to play out. However, just because you lose doesn’t mean you can’t get something from the experience. Learning from a ‘loss’ is an important life skill. One of the key differences between people who succeed and those who don’t is that those who succeed learn from their mistakes and failures (other forms of losing). We’ve discovered that we actually can learn more from our mistakes than from doing things right.
We live in a society that makes it easier than ever to connect. As I sit here typing this, I could communicate with many of my friends, family and colleagues in a plethora of ways: either of the two cell phones I have, via e-mail, through online chat, Facebook, etc. Yet, so many people in our world talk about being disconnected. Why is that? I think the competitive mentality of our culture plays a large part in it.
As a culture, we attach far too much importance to ‘winning’. We approach many of our life interactions from a ‘win-lose’ perspective. Think about what happens when you take a win-lose approach to your daily commute, your job, or your marriage. It’s not pretty. I’ve seen it a lot in my work with couples; one partner finds some way to prevail in an argument through demeaning, manipulating, or intimidating their partner. In the moment, they ‘win’ and get the satisfaction of being ‘right’. Unfortunately, their partner, and their relationship, are both losers. Eventually, couples that approach their interactions from a win-lose perspective become very disconnected and resentful, and they tend to just stop playing, because their relationship is an ongoing battle, not a partnership.
I’m going to wrap up by offering a couple of suggestions for ways to change your relationship with winning and losing:
1) When you find yourself in what seems to be an adversarial situation, ask yourself - does it *need* to be that way? Do you have to win at the expense of the other person? I’m not suggesting that you give up your boundaries or allow yourself to be taken advantage of, but see if there’s a ‘win-win’ answer, a way for everyone involved to benefit.
2) Next time you end up on the ‘losing’ end of a situation, once you are past your initial disappointment, see if you can find some value in the loss. What can you learn from the experience that will help you get a better result the next time you are in a similar situation?
If you have any stories of your own experiences with learning and growing from loss/failure, or how trying to force a win caused problems for you, I’d love to hear them.
Until next time ...
It’s not my favorite quote. First off, because it’s not true, and secondly, because it encourages a mentality that’s very damaging in any relational environment.
Sure, in (most) sports, there’s a ‘winner’ and a ‘loser’. Sports is about competition, and they keep score, so that’s how it’s going to play out. However, just because you lose doesn’t mean you can’t get something from the experience. Learning from a ‘loss’ is an important life skill. One of the key differences between people who succeed and those who don’t is that those who succeed learn from their mistakes and failures (other forms of losing). We’ve discovered that we actually can learn more from our mistakes than from doing things right.
We live in a society that makes it easier than ever to connect. As I sit here typing this, I could communicate with many of my friends, family and colleagues in a plethora of ways: either of the two cell phones I have, via e-mail, through online chat, Facebook, etc. Yet, so many people in our world talk about being disconnected. Why is that? I think the competitive mentality of our culture plays a large part in it.
As a culture, we attach far too much importance to ‘winning’. We approach many of our life interactions from a ‘win-lose’ perspective. Think about what happens when you take a win-lose approach to your daily commute, your job, or your marriage. It’s not pretty. I’ve seen it a lot in my work with couples; one partner finds some way to prevail in an argument through demeaning, manipulating, or intimidating their partner. In the moment, they ‘win’ and get the satisfaction of being ‘right’. Unfortunately, their partner, and their relationship, are both losers. Eventually, couples that approach their interactions from a win-lose perspective become very disconnected and resentful, and they tend to just stop playing, because their relationship is an ongoing battle, not a partnership.
I’m going to wrap up by offering a couple of suggestions for ways to change your relationship with winning and losing:
1) When you find yourself in what seems to be an adversarial situation, ask yourself - does it *need* to be that way? Do you have to win at the expense of the other person? I’m not suggesting that you give up your boundaries or allow yourself to be taken advantage of, but see if there’s a ‘win-win’ answer, a way for everyone involved to benefit.
2) Next time you end up on the ‘losing’ end of a situation, once you are past your initial disappointment, see if you can find some value in the loss. What can you learn from the experience that will help you get a better result the next time you are in a similar situation?
If you have any stories of your own experiences with learning and growing from loss/failure, or how trying to force a win caused problems for you, I’d love to hear them.
Until next time ...