When Losing is Really Winning

Last night my daughter's volleyball team lost in the State Finals.

That sounds like a heartbreaking event, but to be honest…I feel anything but sad this morning.

This is a team who won only one game last season, finishing with a 1-17 record. This year? They went 17-11, making it all the way to the championship stage.

The how matters - a driven, dedicated coach, a team that adopted a growth mindset, and a group of girls who simply refused to quit when no one expected anything from them.

But the what they gained means even more.

They learned mental strength. They learned resilience. They learned how belief - in yourself, in your teammates, in the possibility of something better - can change everything.

As a mom, this is everything I want my daughter to learn from being an athlete: that winning often looks like losing the game. That it's disguised as the frustrating moment you bounce back for the next point. These are the lessons that will follow our girls far beyond the volleyball court.

In the face of disappointment, the only thing we control is our response.

How we respond to adversity becomes the story of who we become. How we use the things that happen to us…the losses, the setbacks, the frustrations…to shape us, guide us, and build us into the people we want to be.

Loss teaches us to notice the micro-wins along the way. It teaches us quiet, unglamorous victories that no scoreboard ever reflects. Losing the final game does not, will not, cannot erase the 17 wins it took to earn your place near the top.

Loss can be one of our greatest teachers, if we let it.

It forces us to ask harder questions: What does it truly mean to be "the best"? If you never lost, never failed, never felt the sting of defeat...what would you ever learn about yourself? About grit? About character? About heart?

Take Tom Brady. Many call him football's "Greatest of All Time" - a label he openly admits makes him cringe. "I wish you would say, ‘You're trash, you're too old, you're too slow, you can't get it done no more,'" he once said. So that he can look back and say, "Thank you very much, I'll prove you wrong."

Loss and criticism can motivate you. They can light a fire inside you. They can push you towards your goals…not in spite of the pain, but because of it.

That's the quiet, powerful truth I want my daughter (and every girl watching from the stands) to understand: losing a game can grow you in ways winning never could.

The scoreboard doesn't define you. What you do with the loss does. ✨