After Failure, Can You Motivate?

Recently my son was involved in a competition. Unfortunately his team didn’t win, and wasn’t recognized for any of their efforts. Now a days in the “everyone needs to win a trophy” era, children don’t understand why they aren’t recognized with an award, because they “did their best”. Children know when they “really deserved” an award….it maybe hard to admit, but they do know, and it is often difficult to have a child recognize that what they think is the best, really wasn’t the best performance, and someone else did perform better. But in this post,there is no debate if every child should win a trophy or not, self-esteem issues or how not to destroy their desire to continue competing. What is the focus is, is this: In competition, we can’t all be the winners…there are losers. So how does the child get passed the pain of losing and regain the desire to compete again? ANSWER: Discuss what happened! Allow them to express what they think went well, what didn’t go well. Give them immediate feedback, so they remember detail, and can discuss detail clearly. What did the winning teams do? AND how can they incorporate winning strategies and behaviors into their team to emulate the winners? Revisit the past, seek advice from winners, and look forward to putting their new found strategies to the test by entering a new contest. Challenging ourselves is a natural desire for humans. From birth, the challenge to roll on your back, standing up, running, to doing better than before. Possibly fueled by the desire to survive, people want to push themselves to success. As we grow we begin feeling the pain of failure, and often begin avoiding events that bring us this pain. As teachers, parents and motivators, we must help our children work through the pain by comfort, understanding, compassion, and encouraging, facilitating and guiding them back to the state of wanting a new challenge. When my son walked away from the competition, he “quit” in his mind. By time we got home (after going out to dinner and discussing the event), he was ready to take on the new season. Motivate and inspire by being their to support their endeavors.

Competition As Motivation

A day after the superbowl, it is easy to see how competition is a very strong motivator. At school, when it comes to academics (not sports), is there a place for competition? I say yes, on every level, as long it is used along with teaching how one is a good winner, as well as a good loser. I do not subscribe to “all kids” win. Sure, there are times when all students should be acknowledged for their hard work and efforts. You cannot have competition unless you have participation. Students can be motivated by classroom level, school level, district level, community level, regional level, state and national level competitions. Although there are just too many to name, a few come to mind quickly: Math and Science Olympiads, Nature, Geography and Math Bowls, Science Fairs, Lego Competitions, Spelling Bees, and countless Essay Competitions. Awards can be intrinsic (knowing they did a great job), and/or extrinsic (ribbons, trophies, and awards). An important thing to remember, is to use competition in a positive constructive manner, which will give students a reason and buy-in to encourage them to learn concepts that will later help them in life.