Reading Time: 11 minutes

By Cherie Khoo (26S03B)

Foreword

This is meant for anyone who has ever lost something, or lost at something, before.

That is to say, it is for everyone.

But most especially for teachers, the best of whom have never given up on their students. To any who may be reading this, I hope it gives both you and your students greater conviction in possessing the ability to succeed (in any form).

The word “loser” has two definitions. The definition to which you choose to subscribe says a lot about your mentality: are you a person who is incompetent and unable to succeed, or a person who does not win?

Perhaps you’ve thought about that before. But really, just how much attention have you paid to it? It’s a common misconception that causes people to mix the two, and that has a pretty big impact on how we view ourselves.

Even Merriam-Webster, a crowd favourite dictionary, prescribes to the first definition of a loser. But to put it in a literal light, a person who is a loser simply is someone who doesn’t win, no matter if it’s in one situation or a hundred–the label is the same.

Fine, Cherie, you might say. Let’s say I get that being a “loser” is something to be okay about. What’s next? Are you going to preach about “getting back up” or “staying positive”?

[insert dramatic eye roll]

Well, I’m going to tell you to deal with it. And then, how to get what you want next time. Because that’s what we’re all here for in the end, isn’t it? To learn secrets to success?

(maybe not)

Part I: Dealing With It

Before we can attain any goals, we have to become best friends with the unfortunate situations we inevitably find ourselves in. Most of us aren’t going to drop out of school to run wildly successful startups like so many famous businessmen have. Most of us will never find ourselves in the sort of circumstances that truly test our limits.

But this does not discount our experiences of failure. Everyone’s goals and thresholds are always going to differ, and as long as we stay humble and empathetic, all our feelings can be validated. Don’t be the insensitive person who cries about a 97 on a test to a classmate who’s failed. At the same time, you shouldn’t stop yourself from being sad about losing out on a scholarship despite feeling obligated to be grateful for the chance to apply.

Step 1: Cry (if you need)

It’s […] emotional tears (which flush stress hormones and other toxins out of our system), that potentially offer(s) the most health benefits. Researchers have established that crying releases oxytocin and endogenous opioids, also known as endorphins. These feel-good chemicals help ease both physical and emotional pain.
Harvard Health Publishing, 2021

There’s absolutely no shame in crying over something you’ve missed out on. It’s alright to cry if it isn’t your fault. It’s also alright to cry if it is. Similarly, you can choose to put on a brave face. No one has the right (or the knowledge) to tell you how to process your emotions. Only you know what it takes to feel better.

Step 2: Time travel?

This set of vaguely important instructions (which everyone knows but might be apathetic to acknowledge) is turning out to be something like the five stages of grief, and it’s important to recognise that this is the same. You, too, are grieving something, be it the death of a dream or hours of hard work without a desirable outcome.

There’s also a 90% chance that you’re both viciously angry and in despair at the same time. You’ll be asking the age-old question, “Was there anything I could have done differently?” [refer to section on counterfactual thinking for elaboration]

This may shock you: There probably was.

You could’ve done A LOT of things differently. You could have spent less time playing games, or slept more the night before your very important interview.

But… who’s to say the outcome wouldn’t be the same (or even worse)?

Time travel (fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your viewpoint) does not exist (yet?).

Step 3: Self-appraisal and Evaluation

Let’s skip ahead to acceptance. Life’s really busy, after all. We don’t have time to sit around wallowing. Get up, go out, and think about all the things you’ve already achieved.

It’s okay to compare yourself to others. It’s healthy, in fact. We can always do better and become more. But at the same time, realise that you, too, have something to be envied.

Alright, maybe you failed an Econs test and someone else scored an A. But at the same time, you could be more talented at music, or a skilled baker. If we are to get even more abstract, perhaps you’re more creative, or more empathetic. All these traits are enviable and you are lucky to have them. After all, you are what makes yourself unique and trying to “transplant” yourself into someone else’s skin is not advisable. Soon enough, you’ll find it doesn’t fit quite right.

Tell yourself you’re amazing. Really. Positive self-affirmation goes a long way.

Tell yourself: “tomorrow, something great is going to happen to me”. You won’t remember it when you wake up, but you will remember when that something great happens. It can be small, like receiving a “hello” from a lesser-seen friend, or big, like winning a competition. No matter the case, we always get thinking about just how many things happen in life that we take for granted.

Sidenote I: On Self-Deception

I’d like to recommend the book Leadership and Self-Deception. While not wholly remarkable in the leadership aspect, the author does a great job in explaining Self-Deception. The main ideas of the book can be summed up by this article. Self-deception occurs when we see ourselves only, i.e. the world revolves around us, and everyone else is an inconvenience in comparison.

An act contrary to what I feel I should do for another is called an act of self-betrayal.
When I betray myself, I begin to see the world in a way that justifies my self-betrayal.
When I see the world in a self-justifying way, my view of reality becomes distorted.
So, when I betray myself, I enter the box
Over time, certain boxes become characteristic of me, and I carry them with me.

All this talk of boxes and betrayal can be confusing, so, TLDR: “If we select to betray [our effort to remove ourselves from the box], we start to see all of our behaviors as correct and others as wrong.”

This comes in handy when being offered help from others – for example, if an “opponent” offers to work with you, take that chance to get better at something, instead of rejecting them due to false impressions of being attached. The result is usually mutually beneficial.

Sidenote II: On Self-Affirmation

Contrary to the title of this section, Self-Affirmation should not be something you do to deal with your situation. This interesting study by Geoffrey L. Cohen and David K. Sherman from Stanford University explores what exactly self-affirmation entails and how we should approach it. You can watch it as a video lecture here.

This study raises three important points that merit emphasis.

First, approach self-affirmation by removing self-definitions, i.e. “I am a good person” instead of “I am a good student”. This allows you to be more flexible in defining success.

Second, understand that the goal of self-affirmation is to be “good enough” and not “the best”. For actions that affirm ourselves, they only have to fulfil a personal value instead of widely accepted markers of success.

Lastly, the motive of self-affirmation is not to “ esteem or praise oneself but rather to act in ways worthy of esteem or praise.” We can recognise success in self-affirmation if we observe a focus on meaningful acts, thoughts, and emotions instead of material or verbal rewards.

TLDR: Tell yourself “I am a good person” and take action to be worthy of this evaluation.

[one way I try to achieve this is by wearing T-shirts with motivational quotations on them]

Part II: How to get what you want

Getting what you want, and simultaneously reassuring yourself it’s ok to fail, is an extremely delicate process. It’s like standing on an atom, hoping to catch an electron. Chances are, you’ll either grasp empty space or get hit in the stomach. To translate, it’s entirely possible that you will not hope for something enough to do what it takes to get it, or you’ll want it all too much that it slips out of your grasp.

Case in point: I have entered the New York Times essay contests every single year without fail since I was 14. Now, I have never won. But the judging team does in fact notify entrants if their essays are finalists or in the top 25%. For all of the 4 years I have entered, I have gotten such emails twice. The first came on my first entry, when I had absolutely no idea what the judges wanted. The second came on my last, and when I received the email, I had actually completely forgotten I even entered the competition, and was forced to dig through archives of ‘untitled document’s for my essay.

What I glean from this experience, therefore, is two important ideas.

1. Life is NOT a movie

Know that trying to accomplish something by pleasing everyone is literally impossible. I find that trying to write to fit a standard mold is extremely difficult and pointless. Yet I do not mean to discourage you from following the standards set for you. As much as I’d like to… sing a song I wrote and get accepted into my dream university, it will never happen. Evidently, we are still constrained by the markers of success or excellence in particular fields we choose to partake in. There’s no escaping this, save for running away to the mountains and setting up your own rural commune in which merit is relative.

Either you stay true to who you are, or you commit wholeheartedly to following a set of “rubrics” and perform your very best. In the likely event that you try to juggle both, you’ll find that the end product is sorely lacking.

2: Focus focus focus (or: success is 100% hard work, 10% luck, 1% daydreaming)

As a writer, all competitions I enter take months to release their results. Honestly, I’ve found that the less you stress about something, the more likely you are to get it. Call it cosmic interference, call it fate, call it luck—it’s all the same, which is mostly just focusing your efforts on the right things.

Instead of bargaining for divine intervention, this balance is more about the effect on your mindset and how you approach any goal. When we find ourselves wanting something so much it consumes our every waking moment, and even more when we sleep, it’s a clear sign that we are focusing on the outcome rather than the experience.

Think about it: how is it possible to spend all your time imagining yourself with a trophy in hand and actually reach that scenario? Your time is better spent working towards earning that outcome instead of dreaming about it, since it’d be ridiculous to wholly trust that daydreaming is the solution to get what we want.

But at the same time, to get into a position where winning is possible, we have to believe wholeheartedly in ourselves. We have to be completely and utterly convinced that it is possible to will an outcome into reality.

So shoot high! Anyone who’s worked with me in a competitive sense will know that I make it a point to proclaim that the most amazing and outrageous scenarios will happen (like placing first in every category of competition there is). Deep down, we all know that will never happen, but it doesn’t hurt to live like it will. (So long as you’re not too disappointed by the result.)

“When you’re playing a point, it has to be the most important thing in the world. But when it’s behind you, it’s behind you. This mindset is really crucial because it frees you to fully commit to the next point, and the next point after that, with intensity, clarity, and focus.”
Roger Federer, Winner of 20 Grand Slam titles

Strangely enough, I’ve found there’s a fine line between wanting something just enough to make it happen, but not so much that you lose sight of what made it worthwhile in the first place. Oftentimes, when I actually attain something, it’s when I’m most comfortable.

Another way to realise this is to come to terms with the reality that you have not gotten what you want. If you feel satisfied, or at least, not inclined to break down, then it’s a good sign that you’re mature enough to be proud of the effort you have put in.

Part III: Closing Thoughts and FAQs

What if you get… say, second place?

There’s a pretty popular idea circulating online that third place is worlds better than second, because it feels like you’ve lucked out, instead of missing out.

This is called counterfactual thinking, where humans tend to create possible alternative scenarios to life events that have already happened.

What makes this bad, however, is the employment of upward counterfactual thinking, where we rehash situations to find out what could have been attained. For example, “if only I had studied, I would have passed”.

I’ve felt this all too many times, though perhaps the instance that hits hardest when you know just how close you are to doing better. But then I ask myself, would this be any different if I were dead last? Just because the situation changes slightly does not alter the fact that you have lost, so why does one instance warrant even more self-pity?

The thing is, downward counterfactual thinking could prove to be beneficial in the long run, like saying, “second place is not bad, after all, I have done well — better than third place”.

Asking “what if” questions can therefore fuel motivations to do better, or to alleviate our disappointments, but only when used in moderation.

Self-Sabotage

Have you ever heard of the term “self-sabotage”?

Picture yourself bracing to give a speech in front of your class, or sharing your ideas with other people. Chances are, you’ve prefaced the presentation by saying “oh, forgive me if it’s not that good, I did it yesterday in an hour” (even if you actually spent the whole week).

As humans, we have a tendency to dislike embarrassing ourselves in front of others. Therefore, it is natural for us to try and play off our nervousness and discount our full efforts in an attempt to cushion the blow should our work draw contempt.

Self-sabotage can manifest in other ways, in terms of emotional resilience and creative abilities. If we continually believe in an “upper limit” we cannot overcome, then, naturally, we will never manage to surpass that.

“Everybody knows how to be a loser because we all learned to walk and have fallen on our bottoms many times. But very few of us can really know what success feels like until we step into it and then stabilise there for a while without sabotaging ourselves.”

Self sabotage takes many forms:

Setting our sights on new goals once we get within shooting range of one, without allowing ourselves time to bask in our little victory and those positive feelings we have earned
Declining opportunities out of fear we cannot live up to them
Believing that up is the only way to go. Rather, listen to Preston Ni, the author of How to Let Go of Negative Thoughts and Emotions: “Look at success as a work in progress rather than yes or no, right or wrong. A work in progress is always positive, as long as you’re moving in the right direction.”

To summarise,

“Having a willingness to feel good and have life go well all the time is a genuinely radical act.”
Gay Hendricks, author of The Big Leap, a book about taking your life to the next level

[to learn more about self-sabotage and the topics elaborated on in this section, refer to this BBC article]

It takes A LOT

The truth is, I’m no stranger to getting what I want, but that’s because I’m practically best friends with loss.

But the harsh truth is that losing functions as a reality check. After all, there’s always someone better than us, and I think keeping this in mind helps us remain humble and working hard. It’s this humility and drive to get better for our own sake that makes us successful. To everyone else, success might seem effortless, but we all know that it takes buckets of blood, sweat, and tears before we can continuously maintain mastery of something.

I’ve had lovely classmates and friends mention their admiration of my knack for English and Geography, but the truth is that I’ve failed before, too. I’ve been complacent, and been burnt badly from it. So, when exam season or application deadlines roll around, I give it my all and never take talent for granted.

You may be interested to know that I failed my first Geography test. And until I was twelve, I had no idea how to spell jeopardy (my spelling is notoriously terrible). But looking at who and where I am now, I think I haven’t done too bad.

As we gear up for the new year ahead, whether we are newly entering JC and secondary school, athletes training for championships, artists stressed about meeting deadlines, J2s apprehensive about the seemingly insurmountable task of A levels before us, university students stepping onto a new campus for the very first time, or even teachers watching our own students go through these trials and tribulations, remember that loss is an inevitable part of winning, and that all it takes to succeed is to reflect, try again, and lose better.