I had an interesting experience the other day, and it prompted me to write this blog post. It actually worked out perfectly that I was researching and writing part of my book that complimented this situation well. It’s funny how you always find what you’re looking for!
Dude had an inline hockey game the other day. The teams were pretty evenly matched, and from my perspective it looked like everyone on both teams were playing well. Their communication was good, their passes looked good, and they all seemed to be where they needed to be. Everyone was working hard and having fun. There was a little chirping here and there, but everything was good natured. In the second half of the game the dude had a beautiful goal. It was a highlight reel kind of goal. Everyone was cheering, and one of the coaches who was refereeing the game looked at me and said, “Hey Mom, we’re going to need a lot more of that in the upcoming tournament!!” His team ended up losing, even though they fought hard. After the game I walked over to chat with him while he took his gear off, and he was really down and frustrated. I couldn’t understand why! He was frustrated that they lost because last time these two teams played his team won. He just expected that it would be the same this time around. I asked him if he had given everything he had. He said yes. I asked him if he thought his teammates had played well and he said yes. We talked through a few more things, but he kept coming back to…. Well, we beat them last time, we should have beaten them this time.
As we were getting ready to leave, multiple people commented on how well he’d played, told him “Great game”, and a few people talked about his beautiful goal. Once we got in the car, I told him I thought he should watch all the video clips I had taken and sent to him and his dad in our family group chat. We talked through the game play by play as he went through the videos. I once again asked him if he had given everything he had. He said yes. I reminded him that he is the ONLY thing he has control over. He controls how much effort he puts into the game. He cannot control the effort of anyone else on the rink. He can try to motivate and inspire them, but at the end of the day he can only control himself. He can control how much effort he puts into practice, and how much additional time he spends working on his skills. He can control being in the position he needs to be on the rink. He has no control over where others end up on the rink. He can talk to them and try to help them but in the end, they will do what they think they need to do.
In 1871 Prussian military strategist Helmuth von Moltke wrote “No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first encounter with the main enemy forces.” General James Mattis said, “The enemy gets a vote”. Mike Tyson said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”.
Basically….. You can plan and prepare all you want, and you absolutely should, but you also have to understand that the other team gets a vote too. I often tell the kiddo that we train, plan and prepare because in an emergency situation we do not rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training. How well the other team has prepared and planned will always impact your plan. Understanding this will help our teens remain in control of their lives. When one focuses on the past, they miss a lot of pertinent details about the present. Maybe there were a few people on the other team who were equally as frustrated about losing after their last game. Perhaps these frustrated people went out and practiced a little bit extra so they could win this time around. The dude’s individual practice plan did not account for what anybody else was doing. The dude’s practice plan focused on what he perceived to be his weaknesses and struggles. So, while he was out there improving himself, his opponents likely were as well.
I’ve spoken about “The Confident Mind” by Dr. Nate Zinsser before, and I truly think it is a must read for both parents and their dragonslayers. (you can find it here: https://amzn.to/49BUwT8 and as an Amazon associate, I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases) In “The Confident Mind”, Dr. Zinsser talks about reviewing the details of the game you just played. He suggests that it’s important to brain dump all of the things you think you didn’t do well and focus on the things you think you did right. This goes back to that whole you find what you’re looking for comment from earlier. In the dude’s mind he was sure they would win because they had previously, and while it’s good to want to win, he should have been more focused on his individual performance, rather than his expectation for the team.
His frustration about losing could begin to chip away at his confidence if he continues to focus on his frustrations and this one loss. Having the expectation that because his team beat the other team before, they should always beat them creates a pressure that could start to crush his confidence over time. This loss could shift his focus to the kind of negativity that would eat away at his confidence. What you focus on truly does grow. As he started to nitpick what he thought this teammate should have done, or what that teammate should have done I just kept asking him, “do you have control over what they do?” and “Did the coach tell them to do that”. As we talked through each of the videos and each of the plays, he started to concede that maybe he had played better than he thought he did. When he watched the videos, he started to see that his teammates had been where they needed to be. After all was said and done, I was quite grateful that I had made the effort to take the video clips, and that we were able to go back through them together. I’m grateful that we were able to have the conversations about the things that he had done well, so that we could shift his mindset from one of frustration and failure to a more productive mindset. Sometimes you can plan, train, prepare, play well and do everything right and still come up short. At the end of the day if you gave it everything you had, and your opponent was just a little bit better you can still feel good about the effort you put in. Yeah, it sucks to lose, but you can try to find the lesson in the loss and prepare a little differently next time. Failure is not final, it’s just a steppingstone to what comes next. The kiddo is a huge Detroit Red Wings and Dylan Larkin fan, so I asked him….. For every goal that Larkin scores, how many shots do you think he takes that miss the net? Food for thought. All he can do is keep practicing and keep shooting the puck. The same goes for everything we do and everything our teens do. We try, we learn, and we try again. We don’t fail if we lose, we fail if we quit.
Have you had any similar experiences? I would love to hear about them, and I would love to know what you did in those situations!