LEARNING FROM DEFEAT
LEARNING FROM DEFEAT AS A TEAM OR INDIVIDUALLY
As individuals, we never celebrate defeat!!
Star of the week can be an interesting event in primary schools in the UK, The funny thing is that stars are frequently very few and not everyone involved can get an award. I believe that we are “stars all the same” just that we shine differently at specific times.
I attended the weekly assembly of my awesome son who got a maths star award. It did feel good and incredible watching him waddle (that's how he walks when all eyes are on him) to the stage to receive his award with the proud dad cheering him on!!.
Everyone likes to celebrate winning!!
However, there are lessons we can learn from not winning at the moment.
It can be a point of quality reversal, improvements in our way of life, thinking and our general interaction with our world. Losing can wake us up to our inadequacies and it is only an indication of a reaction, actions and thought patterns.
In my opinion, winning can be considered a relative indicator and not a granular or personal measure of action. For instance, if I run my best 100meters race in record time with Usain Bolt, you know what the result will be!!
Teams could sometimes not be able to apprehend defeat in spite of the efforts put in to create awesomely customer-friendly products that ‘fail’ to deliver immediate returns defined by business objectives. While there is a thing called failing forward, humans don’t like the immediate experience called failure. That is why emotions spent celebrating successes do not compare with ones released in a failure environment.
People have been known to do terrible things up to suicide because of a failed experience not well managed or accepted!!
I like to win, my team likes to win, everyone likes the feeling and euphoria winning brings. Life is full of wins and defeats and as qualified human beings, we will partake of both pies. There will always be someone who is smarter, faster, more eloquent and slower than us.
The world has been a better place because some smart people did not let defeat hole them away from success, examples can be taken from the discovery of the light bulb, penicillin, potato chips, X-ray to name a few. We can conclude that there are benefits in accidental discoveries otherwise termed failure.
Find below some quotes to inspire your winning streak
- Failing is better than not trying
- Giving up does not make you a better person
- Weakness can be harnessed to become a strength
- Defeat can inspire strength for the forward journey
- Expect defeat to turn up sometimes
The blinding truth is that we own our own victories and should strive to measure ourselves in the light of our actions. If there have been wins you didn't celebrate because of the competition and the assumptions of the outside world, it’s not too late to think back and enjoy a backdated win.
And learn from the losses, you will be the smarter and better for it
Your thoughts on this opinion are welcome
learning from defeats was first published on my blog https://www.bankoledada.co.uk/learn-from-defeat/