ideasarehere

January 3, 2011

Coming in Second

Filed under: business,marketing,personal — Erik Dobberkau @ 21:01

There are two ways of looking at competitive settings: One has it that you either win or don’t win, and numerous people interpret the latter as losing. Which is why they tend to be dissatisfied quite often, because every time they come in second, no matter if there are only two or a thousand more competitors, they feel they have lost.

The other way means to look at the way things are: No matter how many competitors there are, you only “lose” compared to those who come in before you. Which makes coming in second a success more often than not.

The point is that focusing on the downside of your results rarely leads to improvement because it takes away your verve because you feel you’re still too weak, not good enough, a dilettante, which in result makes you even more afraid and hesitant the next time you’re facing the challenge — whereas focusing on the upside makes it easy to tackle the points where you can improve, because you feel you’re already good, but not the best. Not yet. But maybe next time, which you are looking forward to.

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