From both playing and coaching basketball I noticed something that often gets in the way of a player or a team’s success. The same thing affects many people in life. It is the fear of losing. The idea of losing an important game may seem like strong motivation to give your best effort and thus deliver your best performance but often the results do not reflect this. When focussing on a negative outcome we both visualise what is unwanted and use fear as motivation. These are both drivers for fear-based decisions and behaviours which do not bring out the best in us.
This fear of losing can be seen in everyday life as well. Some people stay in an unhappy relationship because they fear they might not find someone better and thus lose what they already have. Conversely, some people will fear losing the person they are with causing them to become manipulative or suspicious pushing them away. Some people have a fear of missing out which leads them to a lot of experiences but maybe not the ones they want. Others have a fear of losing at work or in business and focus negatively on other companies or colleagues who they consider to be competition. When a fear of losing begins to drive behaviour good people sacrifice their values and even our common sense for fight or flight reactions as they become victims of their negative cognitive biases.
None of our fear-based assumptions help us get what we want in life. It is far more likely our fear-based focus will create self-fulfilling prophecies of the outcomes we are trying to avoid. Unfortunately, a mindset focussed on the fear of losing will see the negative outcomes of our behaviours as confirmation that we have something to fear. If our fear-based strategies are successful the outcome is actually worse because our behaviours become reinforced, causing us to live in a way that will maintain high-stress levels and undermine our happiness.
If we look back to the basketball example, to reduce the fear of loss in games when we were behind I used to get players to focus on one possession at a time rather than the end result of the game. In other words, I would ask them to focus on one attempt at scoring at a time or one defensive play at a time. I might also give more manageable goals such as achieving a score by the end of that quarter or holding the opponent to a certain number of points for a period of time. How can this be adapted to daily life? Look at situations case by case rather than generalising. Have a positive goal which states your desired outcome. Create smaller milestones and celebrate the small wins as well as the big ones. Look at what you can control and take action there.
Most importantly remember that unlike basketball life is not a finite game. A finite game can be defined as known players, fixed rules and an agreed-upon objective. Basketball fits this description. In contrast, in an infinite game, there are known and unknown players, the rules are variable and the objective is to stay in the game as long as possible. Which one sounds like the game of life? (For more on this I recommend Simon Sinek’s book: The Infinite Game.) If you find yourself in a situation that feels like a finite game then try using my basketball strategies. Just keep in mind that life is an infinite game where sometimes you're up and sometimes you're down but the journey is more important than the destination. Fear won’t improve the journey nor will it make you any happier.
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