Winning isn’t Everything

As a child and still to this day, I hate the saying “winning isn’t everything.” In my mind (at least as a kid) that’s what losers said. It was a way to mentally prepare yourself for the let down which would ensue when you didn’t have what it took to succeed. I was very competitive in power tumbling and trampoline and despite placing 2nd place at the World Championships in Double Mini, I honestly have never been as successful in sports as my 7 yr old son. I decided to start a blog as what I am quickly coming to learn, is that saying does have some truth. Winning isn’t everything. If you have spent any time around our family, you are well aware that we love sports. Paul and I are very competitive and Joshua in particular hates to lose. Lucky for him, he has been very successful in both wrestling and golf, so losing is a few and far between event. However, the older he gets the tougher the competition and the harder the fall from the top. So this summer, we have really began to try and change our focus off of winning, to a focus of setting personal goals in golf (I.e. hit 4 of 9 fairways, no more than one 3-putt, etc). We are not by any means striving for mediocrity or trying to give him a cop out to go ahead and mentally prepare himself to lose. It’s more of a long term mental approach of breaking down the component of the sport in order to reduce the emotion breakdowns that come with the ups and downs, especially in golf.

Today was the Drive, Chip, and Putt competition. Addison and Josh both did amazing. Josh was 1 player (2 points) away from qualifying for the 2nd round in Tulsa, OK. He was devastated (as were we), but we quickly reminded him that the goal today was to get 90 points (in drive chip and putt…player with highest points wins) and he scored 87 points. He improved by 35 points from last year and we are so very proud of him. Addison, on the other hand, was the winner in the girl’s division today and she was amazing support for her brother when he didn’t qualify. Within 5 min of leaving the course, instead of moping in the car about losing; he and his sister were talking about ways to improve so they can hit their goal of 90+ points next time around. These kids are amazing and we are enjoying the ride.