Feeling Like Winning When Losing Again
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The Olympics are almost upon us. During every Olympics, we come across happy, heartwarming stories portrayed on television, only we also see desperately unhappy ones. Nosotros meet favorites devastated to win silverish, athletes who get fourth or miss making the terminal by a hundredth of a second, tragic injuries, and mistakes like dropping the billy in a running relay or falling off a beam. Anyone who watched the Olympics trials has already witnessed the extreme disappointment felt by those who didn't make the team.
You may have wondered how these intensely focused (and often competitive) people cope with the emotional fallout of losing. The truth is that pain is hurting. All of the states, non-athletes included, will cope with similar feelings at points in our lives. Anyone who strives for goals volition sometimes experience bitter disappointment, grief, regret, while wondering "what if."
Here are some tips for coping with losing that utilize not simply to athletes, but to you, too.
1. Check for untrue thoughts.
When we're disappointed, we sometimes have untrue thoughts that intensify our painful feelings. For example, you might think:
- "I've allow other people downward. No one will be proud of me."
- "All my attempt was for nothing."
- "I've got cypher else in my life."
- "I'm never going to recover from this. I'll be haunted by it forever."
- "I screw upwardly everything I exercise."
Understand that these exaggerated thoughts are office of our response to feeling very hurt. Having a thought doesn't brand it true. A particular performance doesn't sum upwardly everything about you lot. For example, we saw gold-medal-winning gymnast Laurie Hernandez not brand the US team this Olympics. It's non like one version of her is more real or true. Both are. She'due south both the person who won medals and the person who didn't make the team.
Even if a painful thought has some truth to it, it's not immutable. For example, if your life has been focused mostly on one goal, then losing tin provide freedom for that non to be the case anymore.
2. Don't see your pain every bit unique or special.
Because the Olympics are once every 4 years, that is a rough situation compared to people who can try again with their goal shortly after failing or losing. Even so, at the end of the twenty-four hours, emotions experience the same no matter who is experiencing them or why. Intense thwarting, grief, regret, etc, all feel the same, no affair why nosotros're experiencing them. And most of us will have had the feel of the end of a dream or needing to give up on a goal because we've hit some blazon of wall.
The more you see your experience of hurting as universally human, the less isolated and alone y'all'll experience. When you run into your pain equally a factor that connects you with others (rather than separates you from others), it will motivate yous to cope by reaching out and joining with others, rather than isolating yourself out of shame or a feeling that "no one else can understand."
3. Connect with something bigger than yourself.
Personal pain feels worse when it feels similar it'south the just thing that is going on in the world. I'm an atheist, but my go-to when I'm feeling emotional hurting is to larn near nature, the universe, scientific discipline, and ancient history. These topics take me out of myself, help lengthen my time perspective, and help me recognize that individual achievements are very express compared to what people and humanity tin can practise together.
4. Acquire how to handle rumination.
Rumination is when you retrieve the aforementioned thoughts over and once more. It'southward commonly about events that have occurred, whereas worry is near future events that might occur. When people ruminate after losing, they mentally replay decisions and imagine how things might've worked out if they had fabricated unlike decisions. For example, I've heard former contestants on competitive reality shows (like Survivor) talk about mentally rehashing their game for years after the fact.
In that location are lots of proven strategies for coping with rumination. The get-go stride is noticing when you're doing it.
5. Aim for post-traumatic growth.
You don't have to merely survive emotional pain. You tin can become a more skilled, more than resilient person because of it. A paradox is that it tin can exist easier to go through terrible pain if you aim to grow from it rather than if you lot aim to merely survive it. In full general, simply trying to survive any experience is harder than trying to abound through it.
Over the past 2 years, I've spent an incredible corporeality of coin on failed IVF. Aside from the money, it has likewise been a huge focus on my life. Other aspects of my life and career take been largely on hold. It's difficult non to feel all the bitterness I've talked about throughout this post. It's difficult not to think about all the other things I could've spent the money on, or where my career would be at if I hadn't devoted all my energy to unsuccessfully trying to have a baby.
Nevertheless, I have grown from information technology. I'm more empathic. Through participating in back up groups, I've improved my skills at supporting others generally. My feel has reinforced my strengths as a persistent and tenacious person. And, I've learned that I can endeavor goals without being sure I'll succeed at them.
To see how yous might feel post-traumatic growth, await to office models. Wait to people who are having fulfilling lives without having achieved the goal you failed to achieve. How are they doing it?
Consider a few sessions with a therapist. But don't get in without a clear goal. Specifically, ask your therapist to assist you acquire how to experience mail-traumatic growth. If yous need it, and you probably will, you can inquire for assist to curb rumination too. Information technology's optimal to have a positive goal (to proceeds something) and not just a negative goal (to stop something), so these are a great combination, specially if you more often than not focus on your positive goal.
Y'all won't be ready to call back near post-traumatic growth until y'all've survived the initial psychological stupor of losing or declining. Requite yourself the grace to get through that phase, but don't let information technology last too long. About 2 weeks is about the maximum y'all should be in pure survival mode afterwards an enormous daze or devastating disappointment before y'all start gently thinking about thriving.
Here's what to look: Initially, after a loss or failure, you'll have a period in which you lot're only thinking most surviving your experience. In one case you begin to emerge from it, you'll experience a mixture of thoughts and emotions, some about surviving, and some about growth and new goals. The residue of those will become up and down.
When you lot've experienced loss or failure, getting through it shouldn't be a passive experience. There are lots of techniques and skills that yous can try that volition influence how well you come through information technology. Outset with whatsoever appeals to you from the suggestions offered here. Good luck!
Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-practice/202107/how-cope-losing
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