Losing Also Wins

We were born to be winners! We were born to succeed! Or at least, it’s what they taught us growing up. We learned that losing is negative. Hence we feel bad when we are faced with a loss.

On the other hand, we associate failure with being less valid and with the growing need that we are missing something. We even associate it with emotions such as sadness, shame or anger … The point is that it always has negative connotations for us. So what good can losing have to us?

Obviously, if we only see its negative side, it will be difficult to think that we could get something good. However, strange as it may sound, the word lose always comes with its counterpart: winning. Every time we lose something, we gain something else. We are going to develop this idea a little more.

Yin and yang

You have probably seen the ying and yang symbol countless times. This has a very interesting connotation. The theory of yin and yang is a fundamental element for the philosophical current of Taoism. It refers to the duality that characterizes everything in the universe.

Thus, from this philosophy,  nothing is entirely pure and permanent because in everything there is duality. For example, we would say that summer is the opposite of winter, but one cannot exist without the other. It also happens that in the middle of summer we get to have a cool day and in winter the opposite happens. That is, the two states coexist.

In this way, nothing is totally good, nor is it totally bad. Therefore, when they teach us that losing is absolutely wrong, we are hearing a wrong interpretation. Losing always shows us something about ourselves: perceiving what will bring us success. Therefore, even in failure there is duality.

What do we gain by losing?

If we stop to reflect on what happened to make the loss happen, we will learn. Losing always implies a change, a transformation both of the fact and of ourselves. Therefore, from that point of view, losing becomes winning. But what do we get? Knowledge. We will surely no longer face similar situations in the same way. And in addition, we also gain the ability to make thinking more flexible and introduce new strategies that bring us closer to the goal we want.

Now, this does not mean that we do not have to care about winning or losing, but that despite losing, we must not stagnate in what happened. We have to go around it and use the opportunity to evaluate what happened so that we can use another strategy.

The important thing is the way

“Winning is secondary, the important thing is to have fun” is a very common expression that almost all of us have heard throughout our lives. And despite this, we do not have it internalized, so if we lose, we take it badly.

We are all influenced by what we learned about the negatives of losing. The best way to change it is by making the decision to change the perception of that concept. It is not a utopia or a denial of reality. It is a matter of accepting the fact of having lost something and focusing on discovering what that experience has left us. Which goes beyond the result obtained.

What is the use of knowing how to lose?

If we assume that losing is sometimes part of life, that to some extent it is necessary for us to win in the future, we will be able to perceive that word with a not so negative connotation. And in this way we will begin to make productive use of it.

Sometimes you have to lose in order to win. Once we manage to overcome the feeling of anger that losing generates us, the mind opens a space for us to question the fact and our performance. This will allow us to see things differently, much broader.

Breaking the barrier of defending ourselves, in the face of the shame and anger that losing causes us, will open the doors to personal growth. Let’s not forget that we can take advantage of failure to grow.