Everyone's a Winner

Everyone's a winner - but are they and should they be?

Mark and I had an interesting conversation about the word winner - to me in a competition context a winner is the person who wins the class. To Mark a winner is somebody who has won - could be the class or it could be because they had achieved a goal or target.

There is a great difference as in a class of 240 dogs there are 239 people that aren't going to win. Winning creates a good feeling that motivates us to work hard to achieve that emotion again. So to create hard working motivated handlers we need to have more winners. I don't know of any other sport that has such a high number of losers.

We are going to Germany soon for the Border Collie Classic and I would be very surprised to have any more that 3 rings. Our friends on the Continent are amazed by our class sizes. They have more opportunity to be winners more regularly. 

But if everyone could win more easily then the standard at the top would get worse wouldn't it? Well in Europe they have to be successful in the higher grade or they move back down the following year. This maintains the standard.

Meanwhile what can we do to help agility people in the UK from feeling demotivated or turning into people that constantly moan - course times are too tight, courses are too hard, classes are too big etc because they are lacking in the winners euphoria? We need to make ourselves feel like winners due to achievements we have instead of actually coming 1st. 

Goal setting is an excellent way to see how well you are doing. It can take a while to perfect the skill as often it is easy to set targets that are too easy and then to choose one's that are too hard. The more process driven they are the better. Outcome (winning the class) related can be powerful either to the addition to your winning experiences or detrimental towards gradual improvements.

Goal setting was amazing for the Flint days and the early days with Torro. Now I have hard work to do to realign my aims for Torro to be realistic to our show performances. In training he is utterly brilliant (and I'm pretty decent too). In the ring I have somehow lost that winning feeling and struggle to achieve even a non-elimination especially in Champ classes where all I want is anything but that. He has qualified for the Power & Speed final which was not on my list of goals and also one ticket final which is. So work to be do there I think.

Meanwhile Rhyme has surpassed each and every goal I have set him so far this year. Mine you he is such hard work in the queue I feel like a winner just by being able to get him to the start line, have a solid wait and stay with me all the way round.

It's great that shows are back to normal and I am so looking forward to the KC Festival and The Border Collie Classic.

I am also very happy to realise that all the people that have 1 to 1's with me have either won. moved up a grade or qualified for a final this year so far. That certainly makes me feel good and very proud of them.