Members of Wake and District are hitting the road this weekend to Mt. Pleasant, SC for the 47th Annual Charleston Scottish Games being held at the historic Boone Hall Plantation. Members of our organization will be competing in the G3 band event -- along with several solo competition events. We will surely post photos and results from the field with an upright zeal. To all of the bands and our many family and friends heading out…SAFE TRAVELS one and all.
As we prepare close out the end of another EUSPBA season we ponder the impending vicissitudes: the thrill of success, and the agony of defeat—not the euphemism, the real deal— registering in every fiber of our being and right there for everyone to see.
Folks may start out with the best intentions and grip on their emotions picture— the tuning to Scotland the Brave, flam after flam — but with the first error (or perceived error) things degenerate quickly and it’s Jackson Pollock on a bad day. There’s the pre-game freak out, the post-game melt down, the throwing down of the pipes, drumsticks, or whatever the case may be, followed by the “I hate everything, everything stinks, I quit” self-recrimination rant that occurs once the doors auto-shut on the mini-van.
Why is it that some players can’t lose? Is it their über focus on getting being the “champion”, the pressure to accept anything else but beyond the best? While there is no doubt that those success-crazed folks gone wild don’t help and need to be benched themselves, usually they only broadcast in stereo the message going through a player’s own mind: winning is everything; losing is the end of the world as we know it.
It’s also clear that our culture is out of whack, witness the 5:00 am sports practices, travel tournaments for 2nd graders, and cut-throat competition for all. While rectifying these variables will certainly improve the outcome, it will not eliminate the problem of folks who fall apart in the face of defeat. Especially since many of these folks fall apart even with just the anticipation of defeat. So losing isn’t the real disaster for these people, their relationship to losing, is the disaster.
We have all been witness to the poor sportsmanship and in those moments we thank goodness it’s somebody else’s band freaking out this time and not ours. But if you’re a player, chances are your number will come up, and you will be that band too. Until you can help your fellow players change the news feed in their mind about what just happened, no reassurance or tough love will be a match for the wrath or despair of your miserable player in ghille brogues.
What’s it all about? Are we being bratty sore losers, or is there call for compassion?
No one likes to lose, but for some folks losing isn’t a superficial scratch on the ego, it goes deep. In fact the reason why some have trouble losing is that they can’t hold on to who they were before the loss; instead, no matter how many successes they had under their belt, the loss transforms them irrevocably into a loser. It’s as if each game is a gamble where they put all their chips on the table, and if they lose, they’re cleaned out of all of their assets. If this is starting to sound like some people you know, including yourself, read on, the solutions are pretty much one size fits all.
The secret to a successful season isn’t just taping up the chanter, getting your tempos right, roll and repeat… it’s building up your muscle to lift yourself out of disappointment, and quickly. Even if your putting in hours everyday practicing, the way you ares going to succeed in piping and drumming (and in life) is to make friends with, or at least not be mortal enemies with, losing.
In sports more than any other arena, losing is a built-in. Sometimes it’s you, sometimes it’s the other team, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise. And yet, for many, it’s like they never saw it coming and it knocks them flat on the ground. The more who can re-think what it means to lose, the more they will be resilient people—not only bouncing back from disappointments, but coming back stronger, because they’ve made use of what went wrong to improve— for the next time— what they can do right.
These strategies will help maintain perspective when there are those disturbances on the field and put the bounce back in your spirit:
Empathize, Empathize, Empathize! Though it’s tempting to rush in and reassure or correct your thoughts and feelings (by saying, don’t feel that way, don’t say that, that’s not true!), this will only get folks more upset because rightfully so, they feel you haven’t heard them. Instead reflect what they are saying, “this feels like the worst day of your life,” or, “you feel like you’re the worst player.” Empathizing doesn’t mean agreeing with their conclusions, it means accepting that this state at this moment. By hearing your thoughts played backwe are often able to move beyond the feelings and recognize how we are different from the facts, “I feel that way, but I know it’s not true.”
Lower the Stakes not the Standards: Separate your Values from the Outcome of the Game. Your values as a human being are not at stake every time he steps on the field (it only feels that way), your value is a permanent possession. Don’t dispense with the importance of playing well, but dispense with the inaccurate interpretation of what it means to lose: ask what it means to if we lose, and then ask to think what it really means in life. What is the interpretation that the coach has? The other players? Even MVPs lose games and strike out—lots of games, lots of strike outs. It doesn’t mean you are a loser or even a bad player, it’s one moment in time. The outcome of the game is temporary and changeable, your value, permanent and only will improve with effort.
Find the Wins within the Losses and Learn from the Mistakes: While every game or event has winners and losers, the real loss is when you don’t give credit where credit is due. Ask your what went well. Don’t dispense with the credit just because it is easy. While you are critical of the one things we did wrong, we will be dismissing and devaluing the things we did well, because in the all or none game, if you can’t do it all, you lose. Not so. Look at professional athletes, the best hitters have the most errors, the best basketball players can’t master the free shots. Help make the crisis an opportunity for learning how to improve: analyze like a detective what went wrong and see if there are things to make it happen differently next time (practicing a particular skill, staying focused on the game).
Separate the Feelings from the Facts and Ditch the Absolutes: When we’re upset our feelings are extreme, fortunately the facts are not. Best way to point this out is to simply reflect back what we say and remind ourselves that feelings are strong at first, but they pass; they don’t last forever. So, if someone says: “Everyone is better!” you say, “It feels like everyone is better than you—is that what you really think is true, or just how you are feeling right now?” Listen and help your mates correct the absolutes: “everyone is better” becomes “some people play better, some don’t”, “I never do anything right,” becomes, “I usually play well, this was a tough game.” “I stink at everything” becomes I am strong in pitching, I need to practice my fielding more.
Identify the Outlier: When perfectionist players make a mistake they assume that error redefines their life, starts a new trend for them as a loser. Help them see that exceptions here and there do not make a new rule, separate their baseline playing from the outliers or exceptions that are going to occur.
Identify Where We are On the Learning Curve: Ask when we started to learn how to _______. Think through about how long it will take to learn a new skill and how she will know when they have mastered it. Ask to draw a curve and make an X to denote your current position.
Control What You Can: Set Your Own Personal Goal: Help go into a game with one or two ideas about what we want to do differently in this game, that way regardless of the outcome of the game, we can circle back to the goals and see how we did with the part we could control.
Bring in the Pros: How Would Your Favorite Player Narrate the Story? Identify with your band one or several players who they look up to and “ask” (imagine) what they would say about a tough game. Imagine or research how they have dealt with their own challenging games. Every sport has examples of winners who also lose, this is the norm. Take Ryan Howard, first basemen of the Phillies, who won MVP in 2006. In that year he had more home runs and RBIs than any other player in major league baseball, AND, had 199 strikeouts in 2007, the all time strikeout mark for a hitter in a season! If Ryan were telling the story, he’d probably say, don’t let those losses get in the way of your success!
Credit: WorryWiseKids.org -- Kids and Sports: 8 Strategies to Take Charge of Disappointment and Say in the Game
We all want to protect our mates from disappointment, but the more we can see that disappointments are survivable, ordinary moments of life, the less we will stumble and get stuck.
We will not only be more resilient and more willing to get in there and play, we will probably play better because we’re are not doing battle with ourselves on the field (let alone how much more pleasant the rides home will be).