The Point of Competition

April 8, 2011

What is the point of competition?  Conventional wisdom tells us that winning is the end goal of competition, but I think that is debatable and possibly detrimental to performing one’s best.  In one of the cornerstone works of Positive Psychology, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi states that the point of competition is to provide an arena to perfect one’s skill.  He goes on to say that a sole focus on winning will eventually lead to a loss of enjoyment of competition.  This last thought is particularly insightful.  How many people do you know who have been on a losing streak at some point in time and because of that were simply not having fun playing tennis any longer?  Perhaps you’ve experienced that, and perhaps we all have at some point.

Understanding that the point of competition is to perfect one’s skills is a very process oriented way of thinking and it supports the leap of faith that you need to make in order to become a better player.  Improve your skills and focus on the process, and trust that the results you want will come to you as a result of those skills getting better and better.  Might you face some losses along the way?  Absolutely, but this brings us to another important element of Positive Psychology – learn to fail or fail to learn.  Losses represent our best learning opportunities if we take the time to analyze them.  They provide a road map for the skills we need to continue to improve in order for us to get better.  Improve those skills and perhaps the next time you face that opponent, the result is better than the last time or possibly even goes in your favor.

To be a successful tennis player (or any athlete for that matter), we must lose that fear of losing as it is a critical part of the learning process.  I took a class in the summer of 2010 from the University of Pennsylvania on the Foundations of Positive Psychology, and the professor, Tal Ben Shahar, hammered “learn to fail or fail to learn” into our brains – in a good way of course!  He used Thomas Edison’s discovery of the light bulb as an example of learning from one’s failures and applying those lessons to the next try.  Edison didn’t quit after the first failure, did he?  No, he continued on and who knows how many times he failed before succeeding, but in the end he did succeed and that’s what we remember him for – the one success.  Near the end of the class, the professor said something that sounds a bit odd at first, but upon reflection makes a lot of sense – “I wish you much failure on your journey through life”.  The more failure we experience, then the more we’ll learn.  So with inspiration from Dr. Tal Ben Shahar, I wish you many losses in your future!  Push the boundaries of your skills and expand them.  Continue the learning process and trust that you’ll be a better player and person for it.