"Don’t solely focus on the results, focus on the process too. I completely understand that everyone wants to win but in a tournament only 1 person can win therefore I don’t want the other guys going away feeling as though they lost because if you compete you don’t ever really lose. You may not get the "W" but you get something more precious than that".
Here's a personal example.
Back in my Taekwondo days (obviously I'm the little dude in the red protector in the photo) I turned up at a local TKD tournament and went to get weighed in. Believe it or not in those days I was light so got off the scales after reaching my massive 63kg feeling damn good.
I had really trained for this; TKD everyday, extra cardio, some weight training, extra stretching, everything just perfect.
As I crash out to rest and get some calories imbibed, someone comes over to me and says "hey well done, you've got gold" I assured them they were mistaken but they said there was no one else my weight so I got a default gold.
According to Homer J Simpson, the best 2 words in the English language are de-fault but not in my world, it sucks.
Off I trot to find the organiser and was told there is no one in my weight group or the one above so I would potentially only be able to go in -78kg which they did not want as they thought it dangerous (they have no absolute division in TKD as far as I know).
I threw a fit and said I was an adult, had trained, take full responsibility blah blah blah so to shut me up they put me in that weight group. Fast forward to the final as there is little me playing the playing the part of David versus Goliath who they said made 78kg but standing at 6' 8" was a little doubtful.
Anyway, as it was before the golden Youtube era where everything makes it online I thought "what the hell, what's the worse thing that could happen"
The match started and I buzzed around him like having a wasp in the car, I was real fast in those days and dragged him into playing my fast game instead of his big game. We threw some shots with me landing the better ones (I thought) and he gassed so bad that he dropped to his knees and had to get St John's to administer some oxygen. I am sitting there pretty damn smug that I slayed the monster when the ref called us to the middle to restart.
I protested that the match should be over but had to fight on (fighting officials is something you get used to if you are not a franchise). In my head I had done enough and finished the round with a cool back kick that landed solid.
What the picture above doesn't show is that 5 seconds later the referee declared the big guy the winner which drew some derision from the crowd but that's (martial arts) life.
The moral of the story? I'm glad you asked.
I could have taken the default gold and sat at home admiring it but knowing deep down inside that it wasn't for fighting, it was for dieting whereas my hard fought silver from a hard weight group and a dubious decision was much more rewarding.
Don't focus on the result, focus on the journey.
Another lesson from this? Sure, I'm full of wisdom.
A couple of weeks later, nobody remembered or cared. If you are worried that people will all talk about you for not winning, don't worry, you're really not that interesting :0)
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