No One Likes a Sore Loser

By: Ayana Bryant-Weekes 

Since I was a little girl I’ve always been into competitive sports—swimming, tennis, softball, track & field, soccer, dance, volleyball and the list goes on, and among the many lessons I’ve learned playing team and individual sports, one thing I’ve learned is that no one likes a sore loser. Unfortunately, I learned this lesson by being a sore loser.

In team sports, losing stings a little less because there are other players who’s actions may have contributed to the loss, for a sore loser, that’s a comforting feeling because you can share the loss with your teammates. On the other hand, in an individual sport, the brunt of a loss is solely on you—the individual player. Either way, if you haven’t learned how to lose, you miss the opportunity to learn from that experience.

A Relevant Magazine article called 4 Ways To Fail Well described 4 methods for handling failure:

1. Put It All Out There YOU control how you prepare, the amount of effort you put in, and the way you behave afterwards. [Colossians 3:23, “whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as if you were working for the Lord.”]  When failure happens, you want to look back and be able to say that you gave everything you had. Failure will hurt, especially if you put all you had into something and it doesn’t pan out the way you hoped, but you can walk away from it without any regrets or what if’s.

2. Don't Let Failure Make You Bitter It’s easy to be a good sport after winning or getting promoted or landing a new client but that “good sport” becomes hard to find when you’re fighting through feelings of anger, hurt, and sometimes shame. Coming face to face with the person who seemingly stands between you and success is already difficult let alone bowing out gracefully. It’s harder to offer grace to people whose win came at the cost of your loss, those feelings of anger and hurt are real and they’re valid. Handling failure well doesn’t mean ignore those feelings. “Be real with God and yourself. If it hurts, let Him know it hurts. If it makes you angry, tell Him you’re angry. But at the same time, we can’t hold onto them for too long.” [Ephesians 4:26-27 “Don’t sin by letting anger control you ... Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives a foothold to the devil.”]

3. Don't Let Failure Become Final Sometimes, failures can feel like the end of the world. Some mistakes feel like they’re too big to bounce back from. But it only feels that way because you’re right in the middle of it. [Proverbs 24:16 “Though a righteous man falls seven times, he will get up.] Don’t let failing define you. “Your failure today could be the foundation for the breakthrough tomorrow. But that’ll never happen if you don’t get back on your feet.”

4. Learn and Grow from Failure. Failure can be the hardest class we ever take. However, most times failure is the push we need to go the next success. Usually because it’s at that point when we’re ready to actually listen. Failure can teach us lessons in humility, the value of endurance and recalibrate our lives in ways that nothing else can.

I look at failure as God’s tough love. He allows your plan to ‘fail’ so that you can turn your face to Him once you’ve run out of your own resources and experience His grace and magnificence in one instance.  “Romans 8:28 For we know that ALL things work together for the good of them that love the Lord who are called according to His purpose.”