A while back I asked the question, What is competitiveness?
I recently came across an Instagram reel featuring a clip of someone (the account owner, probably) sharing their view on competitiveness. Basically, it boiled down to hating to lose.
I have definitely seen this mentality plenty among those people would tend to label as competitive. You probably have too.
Here’s the thing, though. There’s a well established human tendency to feel more pain from losing something than joy (or whatever) from gaining. It’s called loss aversion. Daniel Kahneman (Thinking Fast and Slow) and Amos Tversky first proposed it as a cognitive bias back in 1979.
If we ALL generally have a bias to feel losing more acutely than winning, can we really say hating to lose is a specific trait of true competitors?
Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
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One Response
While winning is the goal, I worry that hating to win isn’t as *healthy” of a mindset as a growth mindset. Another common saying is, “we learn more in losing”, which isn’t necessarily true. If, as youth coaches, we’re truly committed to learning and growth, our focus should be on helping athletes keep healthy mindsets and compete in healthy ways. I’ve found that players that can have fun, stay focused on figuring the game out, and play controlled aggressive, are better prepared for life and longevity in their sports.