Playing to not win the Wooden Spoon
I saw something on LinkedIn the other day discussing business owners who are ‘Playing Not to Lose’ rather than ‘Playing to Win’? Let’s just look at that again… they are playing not to lose rather than to win. This mindset reminded me off the dreaded ‘Wooden Spoon’.
Little Mick
There is a ‘Kay’ family tradition which takes place at Christmas time involving family and friends who compete in a golf tournament. It began as a ‘little’ competition many years ago, but now involves around fifty golfers from across the local area competing to be the winner of the ‘Little Mick’ trophy. Whoever comes last in the competition takes home the ‘Wooden Spoon’.
Fear of the Spoon
Over the years it has become apparent that the last thing the men and women competing in the competition want is to be awarded the wooden spoon. They are not playing to win the Little Mick trophy but they are playing not to lose because they don’t want the wooden spoon. So what happens….? They focus on not losing which impacts their game and the worse they play; before long, their game begins to crumble due to the fear of getting the spoon.
The Wooden Spoon in Business
So, what has this got to do with business and why is it relevant? If you think for a moment that you are ‘playing’ the game of business and that if your business fails then you lose the game and you are awarded the wooden spoon.
Are you going to be more focused on trying not to lose of the game and the effect it may have e.g., going bust/losing clients? Are you going to panic at the thought of the ‘wooden spoon’ and spend most of your energy and focus on what may not happen? Because we all know what will happen, don’t we? Where you focus your energy is generally what will come to fruition.
So, what do you need to change? What can you do to make winning the game of business more enticing than the fear of losing?
Setting Towards Goals in Your Business
When you’re goal setting it’s useful to think of setting towards goals rather than away from goals.
Instead of using negative words such as: don’t, can’t, won’t, we need to use the positive and assertive words. For example:
If we are in panic mode about getting the wooden spoon in the golf tournament, we may be telling ourselves “Don’t go in the bunker, don’t go in the bunker… “, and what is likely to happen then? The ball ends up in the bunker and we go over par for the hole. This is because our brain does not hear ‘don’t’.
We must begin to programme ourselves with the intention of exactly we want to do rather than what we don’t.
Make Your Goals Emotional
Put a ‘have’ around the goals from a personal perspective and make it something you really want… or better still what your family want because it is much easier to let ourselves down than our family.
So, the moral of the story of Little Mick?
Focus on what you want to have in life and in business and not what you don’t want to have.
