Our Youth Development articles are meant to create awareness for all of the incredible ways kids can develop from youth sports. The goal is to help people notice the wide range of development that is happening during youth sports along with noticing performance and results. If you see development happening, even during poor performance or poor results, it can give you the power to make the most of the experience and align with your personal priorities in youth sports.
In this article we will discuss (1) What are the key skills that lead to being able to respond most productively in both victory and defeat and what are the ways kids develop it through youth sports (2) Why responding your best in both victory and defeat is so valuable at the different stages of life and (3) How to create and participate in youth sports experiences to best enable kids to develop the abilities to respond in the most productive ways in both victory and defeat. If you find this all too much, read the cliffs notes or just skim each section. If you want to deeply learn this and incorporate it into youth sports, please spend the time to review, re-read and comment. If you want us to create a program for you that does all of this, please submit a request.
Summary of Learning to Best Respond to Outcomes in Youth Sports
In the world of sports, the best leaders and individuals who truly thrive understand that the true essence of playing lies beyond the binary concepts of victory and defeat. They know that the heart of the game is in the journey, in the relentless pursuit of self-improvement, and in the sheer joy of participation. When victory or defeat is not their primary objective, they unlock a secret that sets them on a path to remarkable growth and unwavering enjoyment. These individuals find that the ability to respond to both success and failure with grace and resilience leads to personal development and a deeper appreciation of the game. Join us on this journey as we delve into the profound impact of how leaders respond in victory and defeat, and discover the keys to thriving, learning, and enjoying life to the fullest, both on and off the field.
What Do Leaders Do in Both Victory and Defeat?
How leaders respond in victory and defeat within the context of youth sports is a crucial aspect of their development as athletes and future leaders. It encompasses the ability to handle both success and failure gracefully, fostering essential skills such as resilience, sportsmanship, and self-improvement. It creates a paradigm where you can "Win" (and have many wins) no matter the outcome. In this context, leadership is not solely about guiding a team to victory but also about setting an example, maintaining a positive attitude, and continuously striving for personal and team growth. Here, we explore seven key categories of skills that young athletes can develop through youth sports, enhancing their capacity to respond effectively to the challenges of victory and defeat. Think of these as other objectives that can also be rated on the "Won vs. Lost" scorecard every time a kid plays a game.
Resilience: Resilience is no only the ability to bounce back from setbacks and adversity, but also to learn and grow from those experiences. Leaders must be resilient in losses and even resilient to accurately evaluate wins. This creates the mindset to grow and improve no matter the outcome, which is a way to guarantee a form of victory, and more victory, every time one plays. Example: Kids can develop resilience in youth sports every time they lose. "Were you resilient?"
Sportsmanship: Sportsmanship is the practice of fair and ethical behavior on and off the field, including respect for opponents, referees, and the rules of the game. It's a measure of whether to win or lose the "right way." Example: Kids can develop sportsmanship by shaking hands with opponents after a game, accepting both victory and defeat gracefully, and showing respect for teammates and opponents. "Did you show great sportsmanship?"
Self-Reflection: Self-reflection involves analyzing one's own performance and actions to identify areas for improvement. This can clearly be done in victory or defeat. Example: After a game, regardless of whether they won or lost, kids can engage in self-reflection by thinking about what went well and what didn't, and setting personal goals for improvement. "Did you discover something you can work to improve upon for next time?"
Productive Attitude: Productive attitude refers to a mental outlook and disposition that leads to the best outcome. Attitude is often a key indicator of whether someone is a true leader. Attitude comes from experience in the face of both winning and losing, success and failure. Example: During a baseball game, down 7-2 in the bottom of the last inning, the kids can ignore the score and instead have an attitude that gives them the best chance to perform at their highest level to finish the game with the best outcome. After they can assess how they did based on their attitude. "Did you maintain your best attitude throughout the game?"
Realistic Evaluation: Productively responding to wins and losses requires the ability to objectively assess one's performance, recognize strengths and weaknesses, and do so in the context of the opponent and situation. True leaders can step back from the final result and find a more objective metric for how well they did, where they succeeded, where they failed and why the final score was what it was. The best leaders can do this in both victory and defeat. Example: Youth athletes can develop realistic evaluation skills by breaking down why they won or lost in a half, a game or a drill in practice. "Do you know why you lost or won?"
Seek to Improve: Seeking to improve means having a growth mindset and actively working to get better at the sport and as a leader, regardless of victory or defeat. True leaders know that the information that leads to improvement is much more important than the simple answer to whether they won or lost. Example: After a game, players can ask what it is that they need to work on to do better next time, to win next, if they lost, or ensure they win next, if they won. "Did you have the desire to improve?"
Focus on Inputs and Process: Focusing on inputs and process emphasizes the importance of controllable actions and efforts rather than solely fixating on winning or losing. The best leaders know to lead teams based on what they can control. Example: In youth sports, kids can learn this important frame if the feedback they get is primarily focused on their effort and how well they practiced to prepare, rather than on the outcome. Conversely, a player who wins because of their natural skill or size is less likely to continue to win as others catchup and is less likely to develop into a great leader in the future because of the focus that is misaligned with success-drivers. "I know you won, but do you know what did to win?"
Why Is How Leaders Respond to Wins and Losses so Important Throughout Life?
We are constantly faced with mini-wins and losses in life, just like in sports. The people who tend to thrive the most are able to respond in the best ways. Below we summarize how people can benefit from learning how to respond best in both victory and defeat.
As a Child, How leaders respond productively in victory and defeat plays a pivotal role in a child's thriving during childhood. It provides them with immediate benefits that contribute to their overall well-being. When children learn to handle success and setbacks with resilience and sportsmanship, they experience less stress and anxiety related to the outcomes of their activities. They develop a positive attitude, which leads to increased self-esteem and a more enjoyable childhood. This ability to respond productively also fosters healthy relationships with peers and teammates, as it promotes cooperation, empathy, and respect. Consequently, children are better equipped to navigate the challenges they encounter in various aspects of their lives, creating a foundation for a fulfilling childhood.
In Early Adulthood, The skills related to how leaders respond in victory and defeat, as discussed above, offer substantial benefits when a child reaches college age and transitions into their early professional years. Resilience, sportsmanship, and self-reflection, honed through youth sports, serve as invaluable assets in college and beyond. They enable students to navigate academic challenges, social dynamics, and the transition to independence more effectively. A positive attitude, realistic evaluation, and a commitment to improvement help them persevere through rigorous coursework and demanding schedules. These qualities make them resilient in the face of setbacks, better teammates and colleagues, and effective leaders who can adapt to evolving situations. Additionally, focusing on inputs and seeking continuous improvement fosters a growth mindset, essential for personal and professional growth. In college and early professional life, these skills create a strong foundation for success, helping individuals thrive in their chosen paths.
For the Long Haul, The skills related to how leaders respond in victory and defeat, cultivated during childhood and further developed in youth sports, offer enduring benefits as individuals transition into adulthood. These skills contribute to their personal and professional growth, helping them excel in their careers, expand their interests, build a community, and create thriving families. Resilience and a positive attitude empower them to overcome life's challenges, while sportsmanship and self-reflection foster strong interpersonal relationships and effective communication. Realistic evaluation and a commitment to improvement drive continuous learning and adaptation, allowing them to stay competitive and innovative in their chosen fields. Focusing on inputs and seeking to improve maintain a growth mindset, ensuring they remain adaptable and open to new opportunities. In adulthood, these skills are the building blocks of a fulfilling, balanced life, enabling individuals to make meaningful contributions to their communities, forge lasting connections, and create a nurturing environment for their families.
How to Design a Process to Learn How to Respond in Both Victory and Defeat.
For those of you that are very process-oriented, here is a logical progression model that illustrates how kids can best develop how to best respond to wins and losses in sport and in life.
Winning Creates an Initial Frame of Reference: Whether it's winning a game, a tournament, or aiming for a winning record throughout the season, victory serves as a straightforward benchmark that children readily comprehend and aspire to attain. "Kids, we are going to try our best to win as much as possible." This begins the communication on a common level that you know the kids will understand, and allows all participants, whether those focused on winning and those focused on other goals, to meet their goals.
Breaking Winning into Pieces: In order to pursue winning in most sports, kids need to be able to understand what impacts winning. They need to understand what is needed to win, their responsibilities, the skills and strategies and the abilities of their competition. They also need to learn that winning requires the right mindset, and that a love for what they are doing, feeling safe to make mistakes, and maintaining a positive attitude are also critical for giving it one's best to win. Explain to the kids that knowing the score without a focus on these areas of what makes a winner, is useless information. It's way more important to understand the drivers of victory.
Cultivating the Skills to Respond to Outcomes: Concentrate communication in response to questions about winning and losing on the drivers, inputs and process instead of just the result. Always put the outcomes into context. Did you give it your best? Then you won on that metric. What could you have done better? Then you won on reflection. Was the other team faster, stronger or better than you in some way? Then you won on understanding the circumstances. What did you do to be a good sport? Then you won on sportsmanship.
How they Respond to Outcomes to Show Results: The kids start experiencing the rewards of their focus on the drivers of outcomes, rather than the outcomes themselves. Connect these dots for them. Help them deeply appreciate that how they are responding to victory and to defeat is improving and that it matters. It helps them play better, get more playing time, win more plays, and enjoy the sport better.
Responding Productively to Outcomes Become Natural: The kids get such joy out of the rewards of their continuous development of approaching outcomes and responding to outcomes. They start to feel great no matter whether they won or lost because they can feel great about identifying why they lost or why they could have done even better despite winning. They learn to feel great that they gave it their best. They learn to feel great about being great sports. They learn to feel great based on how they performed, rather than the result of their competition being weaker or stronger. They start becoming intentional about continuing to develop their abilities in this area...ultimately for the love of the experience of honing the skills that give them the ability to respond as productively as possible in victory and defeat.
How Can General Approaches Help Kids Learn How to Respond Best Whether they Won or Lost?
Here are seven general recommendations to foster the best development of the key life skills that emerge when someone learns how to respond best in situations of wins and losses.
Break Down Wins and Losses: Whenever winning and losing is brought up, refocus on what will drive or did drive the outcome. How was the effort? How was the strategy? Did we stick to the strategy? How were our skills?
Celebrate Resilience: Always celebrate any time a player gets up or the team comes back. Always promote the strength to look honestly at the result with the fortitude to learn and grow and want to do better next time, particularly when you win.
Re-Enforce the Ways to Evaluate Outcomes: (1) The Final Score (2) Effort (3) Strategy (4) Sportsmanship (5) Teamwork (6) Identifying Areas for Improvement (7) Showing Improvement. Re-enforce these any time anyone brings up winning and losing. You need to create more ways to "score" the outcome than just how many goals or runs happened.
Positive Reinforcement: Use positive reinforcement, praise, and encouragement every chance you see a kid respond productively to an outcome.
Create Leaders on This Topic: Encourage kids to celebrate each other when they see a teammate responding positively, showing good sportsmanship, finding a way to improve, breaking down the wins and losses, etc...
Be a Role Model: Frustration is an unproductive way to respond to losses. Exuberance is an unproductive way to respond to wins. Respond to outcomes in the way described here. Acknowledge the score. Acknowledge that you want to win. And then unpack it to what drove the result, identify areas for improvement, assess sportsmanship and attitude. And above all else, keep a productive attitude, with productive tone and language.
Parent Involvement: Get the parents on the same page with this philosophy. Help them ask better questions than "did you win?" Help them understand why their kids can become the best versions of themselves if they learn to use wins and losses to find ways to improve, develop the strength to maintain a productive attitude, act in good character and be resilient. The entire focus and support of parents will change and the stress on a coach to "win" will go down which will give the coach the space to focus on broader development for the kids and pursue the most likely path to actually yielding as many wins as possible.
Top 7 Tips to Help Kids Learn How to Respond Best in Victory and Defeat through Youth Sports.
[Specific Tips Intro]
Halftime Reset: Tell the kids to think about the second half as a new game. Ask them what needs to be improved in the second half to do better. After the game, talk about the result of the second half with more emphasis than the result of the whole game. This will show them the skill of breaking down results and that there are many ways to "score" a game.
Look for Improvement After a Win: Ask them what would have happened if they had played a better team. In what areas would they have been in trouble given the way they played. What should they focus on next so that they would also beat a better team.
Be Specific After a Loss: Be crystal clear with the reasons for the loss and the reasons that they would have won. We passed as well as they did. We shot as well. The only thing they did better than us was kick the ball out of their defensive zone and we didn't do that.
Get the Next Goal: This can be applied to any sport, but in soccer, after your team gets scored upon, have the center forward get the ball as fast as possible, run as fast as possible to the center circle and start the game again as fast as possible, all the while creating positive energy to go get the next goal.
Loud Cheer Every Time: When doing the team cheer or cheering the other team, ensure that the cheer is as loud after wins as it is after losses.
Send a Recap: If you don't give the parents the tools, then they will only focus on the win or the loss. Send a recap that assesses the other elements of an outcome discussed above. Score the team on sportsmanship, hustle, positive approach, self-assessment, ideas for improvement and breakdown of the result. Share the analysis of what went well and what needs to be improved. If the parents can say "we lost the game, but here are the things we did well, here are the reasons we lost and here is what the team is working on or what was outside of the team's control," then your parents will be able to support your efforts on this initiative.
Make the Kids Say they Had Fun: Even if you lost, ask the kids if they had fun. Ask them whether it was fun to play hard. Ask them whether it was fun to shoot the ball. Ask them whether they thought they achieved the specific controllable objectives you set for them. And then they need to emphatically say they had fun. It's okay to believe that winning is more fun than losing, but it's not okay to not have fun as a result of losing. That's irrational since you can't always control whether you win.
In conclusion, the wisdom that the best leaders and those who thrive in life bring to the world of sports is a valuable lesson for all of us. They teach us that the ultimate victory lies in the continuous pursuit of self-improvement, personal growth, and the sheer joy of participation. By mastering the art of responding to both triumph and setback with resilience and grace, they become lifelong learners, continuously evolving, and finding fulfillment in the journey. So, let us all take a page from their playbook, embrace the lessons of how leaders respond in victory and defeat, and set forth on our own path to thriving, learning, and enjoying every moment in the game of life.
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