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Redefining Winner
"Everyone looks at the scoreboard. . . . What's different with athletes who are primarily task-oriented is that they have other ways to keep the boat afloat when things don't tilt in their direction." -- Joan Duda, Chair of Sport Psychology, University of Birmingham (UK)
Take a look at your definition of a winner. Is it simply the person or team who scores more points on the scoreboard? Or is it perhaps the person or team who puts forth the best effort and plays the best game? Is it a meaningful win when the seasoned veterans put more points on the scoreboard than the novices who just started playing the game? When you ask someone how the game went, the answer is invariably the score of the game rather than a comment on how that person actually did that day. Again, we are defining people by the score and not by the effort put forth. We've lost sight of the accomplishments made by those involved in the game. Focusing on the scoreboard definition of winner involves the following 3 elements:
A growing number of people in the athletic world are finding that this focus on the scoreboard results in more anxiety for the athletes, which limits their performance.
PCA's approach is to institute the "ELM Tree of Mastery." E is for Effort - putting forth one's best effort should be rewarded and recognized for the gift that it is. L is for Learning - creating a desire to learn and master the fundamentals of the game results in more desire by the individual to practice. M is for Mistakes - making mistakes is beneficial to the learning process and is not something to be feared. Redefining the definition of "winner" results in more self-confidence, more effort by the athlete and a better person all the way around.
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