“He looks like he might not make the cut. I think I might beat the one sitting on the front row. That makes two, only a couple more to go.” Those were the kind of thoughts I was having since the Pan American Debate tryouts started on a Saturday morning. Since the beginning, I had been looking around the room, trying to identify the other rookies, who like myself, were desperately looking to make the top 15 rank and compete in the Debate Panamericans for the very first time. That very mindset got carried all the way to the training room, and I could feel it with the people I’d been randomly paired to work with too. While we were preparing for the debate, we weren't giving too much analysis or input about a motion/idea so that we could say it ourselves during the actual debate. Everyone also happened to want the role as first speaker, because it was common knowledge that it was the easiest speaking role in the entire debate, which gave you even more chance to make the top 15 cut.
Like this example, there have been many times when this negative feeling and vibe has taken over me during competitions, I just can’t help it. And I’ve always thought that this kind of mindset and feeling was part of the whole competitive nature, so I never questioned it, because after all, everyone felt the same. But after reading “Think Win-Win”, a chapter from the book “7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens”, I’ve realized that I had it all wrong. You see, the mindset that I was showcasing in the debate tryouts was called: Win-Lose. I was literally just aiming to beat the 10 worst debaters so that I had a guaranteed entry to the top 15. In a more holistic idea, it’s just like Covey wrote in his book: “Instead of playing to win, I was playing not to lose”. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame anyone that feels the same way I do, because it’s human to think that way. And that’s because it’s so much easier to try and beat the worst ones than trying to compete with the very best. But even more than that, it’s because we live in a world that fulfills itself with merit, and we want to achieve it the fastest way possible. So the real nature of competition, which is to expand your skills and challenge your limits, gets lost somewhere in between while we are desperately trying to make cuts/teams/whatever top rank you think looks good enough. A few years ago, I was invited to be part of the Peruvian golf pre-selection for a tournament in Curitiba, Brazil. Six girls, including myself, got selected at the start of January 2014, and the qualifying tournament was in June of that same year. The problem was that only three of us would get to go and have the honor of representing Peru. I can recall that from the moment I got pre-selected until the moment I received the official letter to be part of the team, I couldn’t stop thinking about the girls in the pre-selection. I would go into tournaments, nervous myself, but even more nervous that the other girls would play better than me. It even got to the point in which I didn’t care if I played really well or really bad, I just needed to play better than them. Looking back, I did make great friendships and had great memories, but I bet that I would have had a much better time in the process of qualifying if my mindset would have been to grow as a golfer, and not only try and qualify for the team in whichever way possible. I would have avoided the constant stress I had when another girl played better than me, and would have had more time to concentrate on what were my mistakes from one round so that I could make it better the next time. While it’s true that you can’t also have Win-Win situations in competitions like this (We are obviously not going to go plead the golf federation to take all 6 of us), it’s still healthy to realize the kind of mindset that you have so that you can change it. Take all of the negative thoughts, and remember why you are really there. You attend competitions to stretch yourself, because no matter how many diplomas you might receive, the skills that you build, those will last forever. And to be realistic, school and golf competitions are really preliminary, in preparation to something called life. There will always be competitions and challenges, and you have to learn how to tackle them with the right attitude. I can’t guarantee you that with a growth mindset you'll qualify or win, but I can guarantee you this: you'll stretch yourself AND you'll also have a great time. And if that’s not enough, then I really don’t know what is.
1 Comment
Bon
2/29/2016 10:22:59 am
Vale, you hit the nail right on the head. All the win-lose approach does is sell you short. It makes us so focused on the other people around us that we lose track of US and true growth. Jeff Bezos explained it best when he said that Amazon should be inspired by its competition and not threatened. You might want to read that letter he sent to his shareholders. Lots of truth in it.
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