درسنامه تفسیری

Competition – Commentary

Hello and welcome to the commentary for this months’ VIP lesson. Competition – the competition is tricky, and you know, it’s possible to think about, to approach the competition in many different ways with many different attitudes.

I think all of us have seen the very negative effects of competition and certainly there can be negative effects, especially in our current culture, our modern world. A lot of people have a competition mindset that is completely and only focused on the final result, on winning, beating the competition and winning, winning, winning, winning, winning. And that kind of mindset can produce a lot of negative side effects, a lot of negative results. Because, even people who do win most of the time, if they’re completely focused on winning, winning, winning, it can make them very aggressive. It can make them egotistical and selfish. It can create a whole lot of stress, a ton of stress if you’re always worried about the final result, that you have to win, win, win all the time.

The other thing is, that nobody, nobody, nobody anywhere in the world can win always. In sports, even the very, very best players eventually lose. Not only do they eventually lose, eventually as they get older they lose more and more and more often. In professional sports they have to quit, they have to retire, so no matter how good they were. Let’s say Michael Jordan, perhaps the best professional basketball player ever. Still, eventually, his skills went down. Eventually he could not win all the time and he eventually had to quit, he had to retire. This is also true in the business world. No business person, no salesperson can always succeed every single time. So focusing on the result, on always winning, winning, winning, beating the other person, it’s kind of a selfish mentality. It’s also a stressful mentality and it’s a very unrealistic mentality.

Because we see this in the world, these negative effects so often, and we can see in the business world, for example, people or companies that will do very bad things just to win, just to make more money. So we have all these negative examples of competition and because of that some people, many people really don’t like competition at all. They see it as something that’s very negative. But, in this lesson, I hope you can see and you’re learning that there’s a very positive side to competition too, and that we can use competition to develop our skills, to develop our strengths and even to develop wisdom.

I think especially that John Wooden displays wisdom. He showed wisdom in his approach to competition. As I said he was the most successful college basketball coach in the history of the United States, in the history of college basketball in America, so he was very good.

But he had a very wise approach to competition. And, in fact, his approach is the same as some very ancient and even spiritual approaches to this idea of competition and even goals. See, what Wooden was talking about in his essay was the difference between our actions and the results, our actions and the results. We can control our actions, we cannot control the results.

Let me read you a quote from the Tao Te Ching, one of my favorite books.

‘Just do your job and let go. The only path to serenity.’

That’s from the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu.

Just do your job means, do your task, execute, perform as best you can and let go, then let go means, let go of worrying. Let go of focusing. Once you finish your job, once you perform then don’t think about it anymore.

And the Tao Te Ching says, ‘It’s the only path to serenity.’ Serenity means peace. The only path to peace. Interesting.

What does that mean? What it’s saying is that you can own and you can control only your own actions. That’s the only thing you really are in control of. The outcome, the final result can be affected by many, many things, by many factors outside of your control. You should focus therefore, on taking right action, correct action, the best action possible with all of your heart. But then, after you take that right action, after you do the best action you can possibly, then you let go of worry. You let go of your attachment to the results, you don’t try to hold on to winning and you also don’t hold on to bad feelings about losing. You accept any result that comes. You just accept it. You learn from it and then you move on, you continue living.

This is what the Tao Te Ching is saying. This is also what John Wooden was teaching in his essay.

Let’s talk about this idea of right action. Instead of focusing on the result, focusing on right action. This is the same, by the way, when we’re talking about goals, the same idea.

Because, competition can have a negative mindset. You can do it with a negative mindset or you can do it with a positive mindset. The same is true of goals. It’s the same particular problem. Goals can be very great. They can help us develop. They can help us become stronger. They can help us create better lives for ourselves, for other people. They can help us learn and become more wise.

But, as with competition, if we focus too much on getting those goals, getting those results, again we can create a lot of stress. We can create a lot of unhappiness. So it’s the same mentality with a goal. You can choose a goal for your life, but after you do that it’s best to take the same mentality of focusing on your actions, rather than the results.

So let’s talk about right action.

The first element of right action is that you focus on yourself, on self-development, selfdevelopment is the key.

So, in competition or with goals, either one, instead of focusing outside, instead of focusing on the other person or the outside result, you focus on developing yourself, developing your own skills, improving your skills, improving your psychology, improving your attitude, improving your mindset, improving your motivation, improving your self-discipline, improving your energy, improving your consistency, improving your flexibility and adaptability.

Improving your creativity, all of these things you can control, because they are you. So you focus on developing yourself. You focus on improving yourself. You don’t worry so much about the opponent. You don’t worry about the outside world so much, instead you’re focusing internally on self-development. That is one of the main keys to right action.

Key number two, which is part of our code in Effortless English. We do the best we can.

We do the best we can. That is part of our code, our very important code in Effortless English. It means, be the best you can be to the fullest extent possible. But you’re human, accept that you’re human. So sometimes you will lose. Sometimes you will fail. Sometimes you’ll make mistakes. Sometimes you’ll be confused. It happens to every single person.

Total perfection is impossible, so just be the best you can be for just working to reach your potential, do the best you can.

Finally, a very important part of right action, of taking right action, of focusing on right action is that you must realize that the true opponent is always yourself.

If you’re playing tennis, then of course, you’re playing against another person, but if you take a more spiritual, more deep, a more wise view of the competition you’ll realize that in fact, the competition is always against yourself, against your own fear, against your own weakness, against your own laziness, against your own ignorance.

The other person, you can’t control them. Maybe they’re better than you. Maybe they’re worse than you, but that’s outside of your control. What you can only do is to look at yourself. Try to improve your weaknesses. Try to make your strengths even better. Try to have a better attitude. Try to be less lazy. All of these things, you’re competing against your own mind, your own mental weaknesses and sometimes physical weaknesses. That’s the true competition, not that other person or not that other team.

The second part of right action, of wise competition, of wise goal setting is a nonattachment to results. This seems a little strange and it’s kind of a paradox.

Wise ideas often are paradoxical. A paradox is something that seems to be opposite. Two things that are true but seem to be opposite.

What do I mean? Well, it means this. Non-attachment to results means on one hand you do have a goal to win, right? If you play tennis then you’re trying to win the game. You are trying to outscore your opponent. That’s the rules of the game, so of course, it’s part of the game so you are trying to do that you’re not trying to lose. If you have a goal in your life, well then, in your mind you do hope to achieve the goal, of course.

So, you decide on that basic goal right at the beginning, to win the game, to achieve the result.

However, after you make that basic decision at the beginning you then kind of forget about it. You then focus all of your attention instead on right action not on the result. You put aside thoughts of winning or losing. You push aside thoughts of success or failure. You constantly focus again and again and again, on right action, on developing yourself, on being the best that you can be, on competing against yourself, your own weaknesses.

Now, of course, I know, that when you’re in a competition or when you’re having a big goal that’s important to you, of course, you’ll start thinking again about winning. You’ll worry about losing, but every time that happens you take a deep breath, you push aside those thoughts of winning or losing, push aside the thoughts about results and once again focus your attention on right action, on your actions, on what you can control. Your preparation, your practice, your skills, your mentality, your motivation, your discipline, all of these things that are inside of you, that’s where you keep your focus, on your own thoughts and actions.

Now, you’ll do this. You’ll do this again and again and the day will come and you will compete. You will play the game. Maybe it’s tennis, maybe it’s a golf tournament, whatever it is, maybe it’s something with business or something in your personal life, doesn’t matter.

But eventually, you will get a result and part of being wise with competition and goal setting is how you react to the results. You will win or you will be successful. Or, you will fail and you will lose. It’s very important how you react to those results.

If you win, when you win, when you are successful, try to accept it gracefully without too much attachment. This is the key thing. Try not to be attached to, to grab onto this result, this good feeling of winning. Of course enjoy it, of course it will feel good. You play a tennis game and you win the game, you get a good feeling. That’s fine. But don’t hold onto it.

You’ll smile, enjoy it, but do it gracefully and realize, remind yourself in that moment that it’s temporary. It’s always temporary. Every success, every time you win it’s temporary, right?

Because next time you might lose, you don’t know.

So, smile and enjoy it, but remind yourself ah well, it was a good day. It was a good competition. I won today, that’s nice, but it’s temporary so I’m not going to hold onto it. I’m not going to obsess about it too much. Instead, instead do what John Wooden suggests, celebrate the quality of your effort. Celebrate the quality of your actions. Instead of being proud about winning or beating someone, be proud when you do your best. Be proud when you overcome one of your own weaknesses, even if you lose. So focus and celebrate the quality of your efforts, rather than the final results. Don’t be too attached to that final result of winning.

The same is true with losing, which is often harder obviously, it’s not as fun. When you lose or when you fail at something, try also to accept it gracefully without too much emotion. Try not to get dejected. Yes, of course, you’ll be disappointed just as John Wooden mentioned.

You’ll feel some disappointment of course, but try not to be dejected, depressed, super emotional about it. Instead, calmly learn from your defeats. Calmly learn from your failures.

Again, realize they are also temporary.

Next week, next month, next year, you might win. You might have a great success and then a year after that you might lose again and then after that you might win again. This is life.

There’ll always be failures. There’ll always be successes. So don’t get too attached to that, instead, appreciate the quality of your efforts and your actions.

Again, in that essay, John Wooden was very proud of his team because of their great effort.

They lost the game. They lost the tournament but he was very proud of them anyway and he celebrated the quality of their effort, the quality of their preparation.

This is part of the non-attachment to results. So we have two parts to this. These are the big parts for competition.

Part one, focus on right action. Focus on your actions, your preparation, on self-development, on being the best you can be, realizing that you yourself are the true competition.

Then part two, non-attachment to results, non-attachment to results. Let go of your obsession.

Let go of your worries about winning or losing. When you win accept it gracefully then let go. When you lose accept it gracefully, learn from it and then let go. Realizing that it’s always temporary, winning and losing are both temporary.

All right, this month your action, what I want you to do. I want you to do something competitive this month. Compete. This could be anything. If you’re a physical person it could be a physical sport. Go out there and play a sport but do a competition so that you’re competing against another person or another team. It could be something as simple as a board game at home with your family. It could be anything, as long as it’s competitive there’s winning and there’s losing.

When you’re doing this competition or these competitions, focus only on your actions.

Focus on the quality of your own actions only. And then, after you get the result, after you win or you lose, practice accepting the result calmly, gracefully without attachment. Train yourself to focus on right action and to let go of your attachment to results.

I look forward to hearing about your experiences this month. Connect with me on Twitter, I’m AJHoge on Twitter. That’s Twitter.com/ajhoge. Say hi to me on Twitter.

See you next time, by for now.