I hate effing losing

Can't stand it.

Absolutely terrible feeling.

And the worst part about it is that almost everyone has to lose.

When it comes to sporting events that have a playoff structure, at the end of it all there can only be 1 winner.

That means everyone else that has played has lost. That's not very good odds for everyone else playing.

And even knowing that, I still haven't come to grips with it.

Sure, I've gotten better over the past few years. I don't fly in to drunken rages and take it out on the nearest bystander. No, now it's just a matter of taking a few hours to myself - thinking about the things I did wrong, the things I did right, and promising myself to do better next time.

But that's still a problem. A few hours.

The thing about playing in rec leagues is they usually only play once a week. Which means that when you lose you have to wait an entire week - sometimes more with the holiday weekend coming up - to redeem yourself.

One of the basketball teams I'm on has been on a bit of a losing streak. Sure, we've played some of the strongest teams in the league, but at the same time we've lost a few of the games on shots that were either made or missed in the last 5 seconds or less.

Just absolutely heart breaking.

And I can't help but blame myself. I can always point to plays I made when we lose by 3 or less and say, "This game was on me. I let my team down. I let myself down." And that kind of mentality is so hard to break from.

I've woken up the next morning after games and still been in a funk. That's how bad it is for me. And people have told me, "It's just a game." Yes. It is just a game. But it's a game I look forward to all week - and the day of the game it's all I can think about. And a few hours before? Nervous energy sets in. Nothing is right until I'm out there sprinting...sweating.

Also, I've always said, "Losers lose and winners win." Why is that? As soon as you start losing you start to point fingers. You question things that worked before while you were winning. You retool, you rebuild, you try your best to change. Whether or not it works is always questionable - but as soon as that seed of doubt is planted your head starts to hang a little bit lower and the ball just doesn't seem to bounce your way. This is why in every type of sporting event we see amazing runs of streaks. When a team continues to lose they keep digging themselves further in to that hole.

And maybe being so hurt by losing makes winning that much sweeter? I think that's definitely possible.

Another bright side to losing is the strong motivation for me to get better. When I lift, when I run, when I practice I think about "the other guys". How we lost because the other guys beat me to the ball, because they out hustled and out worked me. How I wasn't ready for them.

No, I'm not going to let any more people embarrass me.

I've found that there's nothing better than self talk when it comes to helping me work out. Just that image in my head of the losing score up on the board is enough to drive me to exhaustion.

I understand that losing is part of playing.

Doesn't make it any easier to stomach.

So the losing stops now. Time to turn it around.