Is real success in sport found in losing?

Now I’m well aware that my viewpoint may be skewed. The sports people that come knocking at my door are invariably struggling in some shape or form. 

“I just can’t stop winning, can you help me with that?”

is yet to be the opening gambit from a potential client. Now that’s not to say that winning doesn’t come with its own pitfalls. We only have to look at the recent headlines from Emma Radicanu;

“Sometimes I think to myself, I wish I’d never won the US Open.”

Clearly success isn’t just about winning. 

But back to losing and why it is our potential gateway to true success.

The ultimate truth is that winning or losing can never define us. We are not a better or worse person because of it, despite the narratives of our culture. Gareth Southgate immediately comes to mind. Much maligned for many years for his infamous penalty miss in Euro ‘96 to reborn as England's nearly footballing hero as their most successful manager since Sir Alf Ramsey. 

Even without this as a backdrop it’s easy to see why as individuals we fall into this trap. Personally I experienced the rollercoaster of being a full-time athlete for many years. If we’re emotionally flying high when we’re winning then how can’t we be at the lowest of lows when it’s not going well? 

And this for me is when the most unlikely of opportunities knocks. The opportunity to see the inconsistencies within our experiences, and to discover the true nature of our psychology.. The greatest truth waiting to be discovered by any sports person is that they are not that, a sports person, they are a person, a human being like everyone else. Quietly waiting beyond the emotional theatrics and drama of performance is a consistency of good feeling that we’re all familiar with. So often misattributed to being on holiday, in nature or some other leisure time. 

I propose that in the realm of sport, losing is always pointing us back here because it asks us the question, how can I improve? Understandably our attention is largely focused on the physical, because it’s what we can see. But it is the invisible, our psychology which we so easily look past, that our focus is yearning to land upon. 

For those that answer this call there is a world of opportunity that awaits. Because once we break free of the paradigm that the source of our psychological experience is coming from the sport (and world) around us, there are unlimited possibilities that await. In the great words of the holocaust survivor, Victor Frankl;

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”

Until we are truly the master of our own ship then the very real danger is that we will be at the mercy of any storm. It seems to me that true success is the above realisation, and that sport is the perfect vehicle to lead us there.