Playing to not win the Wooden Spoon.

I saw something on LinkedIn the other day that talking about 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 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. However, whoever comes last in the competition takes home the ‘Wooden Spoon’.

Fear of the Spoon

Over the years it has become apparent that the men and women competing in the competition are more concerned and worried of being 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 wanting to lose which impacts their game and the worse they play; before long, the players’ rounds begin 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 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 light.

So what do we need to change? What can we do to make winning the game of business more exciting?

Setting Towards Goals in Business

One of the key aspects when goal setting is setting towards goals and not away from goals.

Instead of using negative words such as: don’t, can’t, won’t, less 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 then likely to happen? The ball ends in the bunker and we go over the par for the hole. This is because our brain does not hear ‘don’t’.

We must begin to programme ourselves with the intention of what exactly we want to do.

Make our Goals Emotional

Put a ‘have’ around the goals from a personal perspective and make it something we really want… or better still what our 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.