“The only victories which leave no regret are those which are gained over ignorance.” ~Napoleon Bonaparte
Victory is complicated. There are both absolute victories and relative victories. Objective victories and subjective victories. External victories and intrinsic victories. Contrived victories and true victories. You see what I mean? The way the game is played is much more important than the immediate outcome of the match. The best athletes and coaches win through commitment to the process of improvement rather than attachment to the results. As in sport, so too in life.
There is a well documented phenomenon called "arrival fallacy" in which a high-achiever falls into a state of hopelessness following the accomplishment of a major goal. Olympic medalists can suffer from post-event lows due to a loss of obvious direction. Michael Phelps, the man who has won more Olympic gold medals than any one else in the world, has spoken publicly about his own struggles with depression following his Olympic victories. He admitted just recently that he had been living his life in four year cycles since his first Olympics in 2004. His training had been the only thing keeping him going day by day, but when he retired after the 2016 games in Rio, he finally lost his tether and fell into a deep depression. Luckily he sought help and was able to define a new future for himself.
The way we choose to conceptualize success is critical to how we will overcome both failure and achievement. If success is something completely external to ourselves and based on being better than others, then it will forever be ungraspable. We will remain on the hedonic treadmill, forever chasing better and better outcomes, until we eventually run out of energy or friends. If, instead, we equate success to honing our own abilities and our decision to better ourselves simply for the sake of improving, then there is far less that can go wrong. While there is no cure for the power that end results have over us (we are, after all, human), intrinsic motivation acts as a powerful shield against its worst attributes.
The legendary basketball coach John Wooden was notorious for disciplining his players when they played lazily on the court. He was far more impressed when his team gave maximal effort but lost in the end than he was when they won with sub-maximal effort. We can all take a page from Wooden's book by choosing to orient ourselves towards effort and not outcomes--towards victory of attention and not victory of appearance. This is not an easy task, but things worth having are never easy.
In the grand scheme of things, our victories mean very little. Even the most accomplished people in history eventually fade. But that is not an excuse to give up. Each and every one of us matters. We are all important. If you ever doubt that, just remember the simple joy that overcomes infants when they learn to recognize their parents. To them, a caring face and a warm touch is their whole world. That world may be small but its significance is undeniable. Victories don't need to be big to be important. We can all strive to make a positive difference in our lives and the lives of others.
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