Overcoming the Fear of Losing

WanderingWolf said:
You think too quickly when it comes to approaching a competition. You know that you only have a chance of winning, but your faced paced thinking it sending you past that, and you're instead thinking that you're the worst if you lose.

Then again, I could be wrong, since I'm basing this off of what I've interpreted your situation to be;.
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I'm still unsure why you think my thinking is "fast-paced." Could you explain your interpretation of my situation?
 
You enter a competition with the express purpose to win, not to enjoy yourself and learn from your mistakes. That's your problem. You just want to win. Of course that's natural, but something that you should want even more is to have fun and better yourself as a player.
 
RunningWithScizors said:
Well, there's a big difference between entering a lottery and enterning a Pokemon tournament:

When I buy a lottery ticket (which I've only done twice), I do it with the knowledge that I don't have much of a chance of winning, and if I do, hey, cool.
When I enter, say, a Pokemon tournament, I do it with the belief that I have a chance of winning, and if I don't, that disappoints me.
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When I go into each of my battles in a tournament I always go with the idea of losing despite who my opponent may be. If it's an elite player then yeah for sure I know I'm going to lose. If it's a pushover, I still get ready to lose because who knows what rabbit they may have up their sleeve for the darkhorse win.

Just keep losing and learn from your losses. It's the only way to success really. Whenever I lose my matches I'm sad because I'm a "Win or bust" type of player but I ALWAYS reflect on what went wrong and how it could be changed in the future. This is my first year playing competitively and I started off with a bang winning a league challenge and a City Championship. During my second Cities I made it to top cut again but lost. I was devastated and had thoughts of quitting altogether running in my head. But I took a step back and looked at what I accomplished and how many "fans" I earned during my run. There was one more City Championship upcoming and I decided to give it another shot but modify my deck so a loss like that would not happen again. Boom I won my second Cities then. It's all about being patient.

The way you've been describing yourself reminds me of a player who joined our league about 2 weeks after I did. He's known for being a huge sore loser because he also has the "Play to win" attitude and when he loses he's livid. He even goes as far to blaming the opponent for not letting him win. Each deck he makes it's usually taken down easily but instead of fixing the error he just gives up and moves on to another deck which loses and continues through that linear path. Lately he's beginning to realize he's just not cut out for competitive play, and as someone else mentioned in this thread, quitting might actually be the right option if you're not willing to lose a lot and accept it.
 
Juliacoolo said:
Quit. Your situation is a very valid one that's consequences can spread to more important areas of your life. You need to take a break for a while, and only come back when you become content with losing.
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Well that's quite negative and uncalled for. Sure, take a break until losing doesn't bother you, but don't just quit if you enjoy it.
 
Well, I wish I could learn from my losses. The problem is, my losses are often so fast, so dramatic, and so spectacular that it's practically impossible to learn from them. Either I can't seem to get my Pokemon out fast enough or I can't get reenforcements out fast enough, and I lose the rhythm. Things just spiral down from there.
 
RunningWithScizors said:
Well, I wish I could learn from my losses. The problem is, my losses are often so fast, so dramatic, and so spectacular that it's practically impossible to learn from them. Either I can't seem to get my Pokemon out fast enough or I can't get reenforcements out fast enough, and I lose the rhythm. Things just spiral down from there.
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Than change, make another deck in (and I don't play it) TCG. Learn to accept your losses, you don't need to exactly learn anything other than what improvements you need to make to your deck, just relax, don't get so pumped up over every match like your at Worlds battling for the Championship.
 
I used to lose a lot, in fact, I still do. It is a huge mentality thing. If you lose, you tend to either blame it on one of 2 things, luck or misplays. Luck is unchangeable. Blaming yourself on losing a game off of luck/bad draws/unrealistic flips is the worst thing to do, because you can't really change luck, and it wasn't your fault. Misplays teach you what you did wrong and what you could have done, opening your mind to new options you wouldn't have originally thought of. I used to be scared of "losing", and after Fall battle roads and Regionals last year, I was depressed with myself because of how poorly I did. After I learned what I said about misplays and luck, I realized I was upset over nothing and put my thoughts into doing better, which I did, ultimately getting the Worlds Invite. Had I stayed in a "losing mentality", I would have not have done close to how well that I did that season.
Also, have fun during your match. Joke around with your opponent. It lightens the mood and makes you feel better about winning/losing because you had a lot of fun and possible made a new friend.
tl;dr- have fun, don't take losses too hard, don't blame yourself, and never give up
 
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