Nobody likes to lose. People don't like to accept defeat. Losing is a sore topic not to be mentioned at the dinner table. But why?
Every time a marathon is ran, one runner wins and hundreds lose. When you go to vote for the next president, you're not just deciding who wins, you're deciding who loses. Each time you watch the Super Bowl, about 50 players who worked just as hard lose. The corporate company who just offered someone a job also turned many applicants down. The end of every spelling bee leaves hundreds of educated students in a position of loss. When judges crown a queen, the other women face defeat.
And yes, it sucks. Losing hurts. It breaks confidence. It kills dreams. Self-esteem diminishes. Qualifications are questioned and our dreams and goals are reconsidered. It happens all the time.
But you cannot have wins without losses. And that is OK.
I have had my fair share of losses, second places, interviews gone wrong, and denial phone calls received. And to be quite honest, while the losses stung and the moments hurt, I wouldn't change them for anything.
When you look at the shelves in my room, you'll see trophies, certificates and plaques. You'll see sashes and a crown and other awards. A simple placeholder symbolizing some of the wins of my life. You'll also see some participation ribbons and trophies for sporting events, speech contests, and livestock shows. A simple placeholder symbolizing some of the losses or "A for effort" moments of my life.
Today, that is all they are. A memory. A dust collector. A placeholder. My wins and losses can be summed up in a shelf. Wins can make their way to a resume, while participation awards make their way to my "hey, at least I tried" category of my life. They can make you smile and they being back memories. But that is all they are.
But what about the times there were no participation awards for your losses? The times you put yourself on a limb and ran for a leadership position you desired to serve in, or the time you put your heart and soul into your competition team but lost by a couple points in making it to state?
There is no placeholder for that. Nothing to collect dust on a shelf of your room and no accomplishment to put on a resume. Perhaps that is because we don't need a placeholder in our lives to remember the losses. Those moments are not easy to forget, nor should you want to.
It is in these moments that our strength is tested, our passions are pushed, and the confidence we have in ourselves is challenged. These are the moments where it is easy to say "never again" or "I quit." But if you can push past that, past the time where it hurts and is so easy to be a "sore loser," you can learn more than any win would have taught you.
You cannot learn how to lead if you don't know what it's like to be in the crowd. You cannot know how to be a good sportsman if you have never been on the bench. You cannot learn how to be a good speaker until you have been in the audience.
You cannot know how to win until you have learned how to lose.
Don't take your losses with a grain of salt. Take your losses with all the weight in the world. Use the loss to see where you can improve, where you can step back, and where you truly belong. It is then that the weight of the loss and the hurt from the let down will diminish.
Don't let your loss become a placeholder in your life. There are lessons to be learned.
Learn to lead without a title. Learn to be a good sportsman even when you don't make the team. Learn to serve without recognition.
Learn to win even when you lose.
As a close friend once told me, "You don't learn anything from winning. You learn from losing."
