Had an interesting read today – a compilation of thoughts on winning, losing and failing. And so I decided to add them below, in no particular order, and with no major modifications – because some thoughts are meant to drift in the ether surrounding you, rather than to be interacted with. You can choose to pick a random one that crosses your line of sight – which ever you do pick, you will enjoy:)
Larry Wilson put it simply: Are you playing to win? Or playing not to lose?
Playing to win meant a willingness to take risks in pursuit of challenging goals and satisfying relationships. Playing not to lose, which most of us do most of the time, meant avoiding situations where failure was possible. Playing to win, Larry maintained, was the stuff of great advances and great joy alike but necessarily brought setbacks along the way. Playing not to lose meant playing it safe, settling for activities, jobs, or situations where you feel in control.
The decision, Larry would be quick to explain, was essentially cognitive. You could make up your mind to play to win and thus start on the path to changing your thinking.
Quantity overpowers perfectionism, as Altucher explains: ‘Perfectionism is your brain trying to protect you from harm. From coming up with an idea that is embarrassing and stupid and could cause you to suffer pain. We like the brain. But you have to shut the brain off to come up with ideas.’ A quantity goal puts you back in the driver’s seat: instead of hoping you produce something good, you get to know you’ll produce something.
Excerpt From Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
Fear is an emotion that arises when we believe someone or something is threatening the loss of something we value. The threatened something may be our lives, our status, our safety, anything that we don’t want to lose. That’s the simple definition, and I think it’s good enough to work with for now. But fear is also something more: it’s energy, a forecast, a signal from our past, and perhaps most importantly, a source of insight.
In collaborative work specifically, fear of losing influence, being sidelined, or looking incompetent can quietly drive some of the most destructive group dynamics: the withdrawn participant, the dominating voice, the person who agrees in the room but undermines the work outside of it. Most of the time, no one names what’s actually happening. They don’t need to suppress the fear because it has already suppressed itself.
The Unexpected Benefits of Fear, Conflict, Failure, and Resistance by Russ Gaskin
“The fear of failure should be replaced with the excitement of doing.”