HOW TO KNOW IF YOU’RE A SORE LOSER

There’s still good NBA playoff basketball being played. I should be watching. But I don’t care – not since the Lakers were swept last week by Dallas. This was a difficult admission to realize I’m still a bit of a sore loser. But what’s comical is that the guy people love to hate, Kobe Bryant himself, isn’t even one…not necessarily. Bryant is arguably one of the fiercest competitors in any sport of any era and when his quest for a sixth championship ended, he had to sit in front of reporters and provide quotes and soundbites that sounded deferential and dignified. I know he didn’t want to say a word. Would you have?

See I’m a sore loser and chances are you might be to if you do the following five things:

Move to blaming others or circumstances when your demise is realized.
Pout when you can’t have what you want when you want it.
Allow your mood to be dictated by wins and losses.
Insist on a rematch when you’re not equipped to win one.
Cease pursuing a goal because you’ve failed at it.

Muhammad Ali is famous for many things not the least of which is this quote:

“Champions aren´t made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them – a desire, a dream, a vision.”

It’s the vision that propels or should propel us. The beauty of your life is in the commitment to detail, to training, to maximizing to getting up off the mat when you’ve just suffered an embarrassing defeat. And that defeat comes at the hands of various opponents. If it’s not your exhaustion from school work, it’s work itself that’s about to give you a cat nap to the canvas. You may have lost financially, morally, physically but sore losers are one dimensional. Kobe couldn’t stop being a husband and a dad because the Mavericks are moving on and his Lakers aren’t. Dare I say it? Even Tiger Woods doesn’t have time to be a sore loser and that dude has lost his reputation and his wife.

Some inventory would be good everyday. When the day ends, check yourself against the list:

______ (Yes)       ______ (No) Blamed others or circumstances when your demise is realized.

______ (Yes)       ______ (No) Pouted when I couldn’t have what I wanted when I wanted it.

______ (Yes)       ______ (No) Allowed my mood to be dictated by wins and losses.

______ (Yes)       ______ (No) Insisted on a rematch when I was not equipped to win one.

______ (Yes)       ______ (No) Ceased pursuing a goal because I’ve failed at it.