Some losing required

It is fun to compete with others - to test your strength and abilities against others who are able to match your strength and abilities - to see who is the best. Competing and winning are very interesting concepts and sometimes we are apt to think that they are the same. Winning a game or winning the championship of your league is a good goal, and there are some necessary elements or the fun of winning isn't there.

What must be there is the element of equality or near equality of ability. In other words, it isn't much fun to win if there's no possibility of losing. It is also not much fun if there is no possibility of winning.

Here are our three rules of competition as it is relates to fun and improvement:

1. If you play consistently with someone who is much better than you, you will improve for a while, but eventually you will get discouraged, stop trying, and choose not to compete any longer.

2. If you play consistently with someone who is much worse than you, you will enjoy your victories for a while, but eventually you will get bored with it, get tired of dealing with your opponent's distress, and choose not to compete any longer.

3. If you play with someone fairly equal in ability to you, sometimes you will win and sometimes you will lose, and you will always be involved.

In order to have a good competitive situation, there must be the possibility of your losing. Without the risk of losing, winning does not have much meaning. If you want to improve, make sure you are occasionally playing people who are better than you at this time. There must also be the possibility of winning.

This leads us to the concept of the Joy of Losing. There are many sayings based on winning while being aware of the positive, necessary presence of losing. For example, in a sales training for salesmen, they say, "Successful people make more mistakes than unsuccessful people." The poster on the wall says, "Ships in the harbor are safe, but that is not what ships are built for." How about, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained." and "Observe the turtle; he makes progress only when he sticks his neck out."

I love to hear my friend talk about learning to ski. She told the instructor, "I'm doing well, I didn't fall once." Her instructor replied, "Then you didn't try hard enough to improve." You see, her goal was not to fall, his goal for her was to have her push her limits and improve.

In one important sense, you want to beat your opponent while hoping that he or she is playing good enough to be able to beat you. In order to grow, you must continually challenge yourself. I'm not saying that losing is fun, I'm saying that the possibility of losing is necessary.

Good coaches teach their players to compete with their opponents; great coaches teach their players to cooperate with each other and then to compete with their opponents. It's fine to have your second baseman and shortstop engaged in a friendly contest to see who will be the team batting leader, but it would be great if they shared information about the strengths of the opposing pitcher and don't you want them to be closely related as they work on double plays.