July is the quintessential summer month fully of sunshine, watermelon, gatherings, flags, fireworks, swimming, backyard kickball games, badminton, and, of course, baseball games!
How do YOU do July?
Baseball brings me right back to one of my favorite parenting topics – competition. Our kids, well everybody, lives with competition to varying degrees. There are different types of competition, yes? I split all competition into two categories for simplicity sake: helpful competition and harmful competition.
Briefly, harmful competition is the type that puts another lower than others. This type is rushing to get the best parking spot before others or entering a restaurant quicker than others to be served first. It’s out of the flow of the abundance of Life behavior.
Helpful competition is awesome, uplifting, and empowering. Yes, someone or a team has to lose, but that is in score only. With helpful competition, no one loses. Everyone wins with an outlook that delivers such perspective.
Have you ever lost an opportunity only for it to be the best situation for you? Have you ever lost a team game, but then worked on skills to be better? Has your child ever come in second only to be motivated to go in a different direction because of it? Can all of Life be working in your favor even when it doesn’t seem to be?
Here’s an example: college legos challenge teams gather once a year to complete. One university brings their A Game and wins by a large margin. Their design was incredible, awesome, completely new and different, AND…inspiring! Now, all the universities at that competition have been exposed to a new legos level. Everyone has been enriched. Everyone leaves dreaming of what is now possible because of the loss at the competition. Filled with eagerness, all the colleges are already planning to be the next big thing at next year’s competition. It’s really win-win, yes?
Despite his personal life issues, I love using Tiger Woods as an example. He showed the world the next level of golf. He was it. He lived it. And, he won and won and won. Most of the golfers took notice and changed. Physiques became thinner, toned, and muscular. Eventually, other golfers became more competitive with the already physically fit Tiger showing that tee offs could routinely reach 300 yards.
Enjoy summertime sports knowing that no matter what, everyone wins with a helpful competition mindset. It’s not all about the numbers or the trophies.