As we enter the last few weeks of the current show season, the tension rises as many owners and their cats jockey for their final position in the national and regional standings.
For a some owners and kitties, the last few weeks of showing can be especially difficult.
Some cats may have been on the campaign trail for almost a full year. Even with occasional weekends off, showing month after month can be tiring for even the best tempermented feline.
To complicate matters, it is now breeding season, and for the cats in Championship, that means the females are coming into season and the males have raging hormones.
For the owner, campaigning often means being away from home from Friday to late Sunday for many weekends of the year. Everyone is exhausted . . .
No One Wins Every Time
Perhaps the most difficult thing about campaigning is that not everyone will reach their goal. That is part of life. Sometimes you win. Sometimes your lose.
You set your goal and want to be successful. Yet some owners will finish this season disappointed. Every year there is a Top 25 — but that means there must be a cat at #26 that didn't quite make it.
A Matter Of Character
Everyone has failed at some point in their life. This is nothing exceptional. However, it's what you do with that failure that makes all the difference . . .
Losing gracefully is the first step to moving past the loss. In fact, graceful losers may hardly be impacted by the loss at all, because they know another opportunity awaits them. After all, one week after season's end, a new season begins.
Perhaps the biggest risk of being a sore loser is this loss of hope for the future. A sore loser is stuck on the loss, and in so being, may miss out on a new opportunity, or be passed by for one because of their poor attitude.
Of course, making lemonade out of life's lemons is not always easy. In fact, it can be downright hard — but it is a principle worth living your life by, and teaching to your children to live theirs by as well.
How Can You Lose Gracefully?
How can you lose gracefully, even when you really, really wanted to win?
Release the feelings you have about losing — the anger, the embarrassment, the resentment — and you will always feel successful. And then a funny thing will happen. When you FEEL successful, you will ACT successful, and then, sure enough, you will BE successful.
The objectives in your life are always changing, but what you are at your core is changeless.
The more you release the fears and negativity you have about winning and losing, the easier it will be to accept things that do happen. When you lose, you'll be able to do so gracefully, and when you win, you'll be a gracious winner too.
So, congratulations to all the winning cats and their owners . . . .and to those who ran well, but didn't quite win, you too have much to be proud of, for you dared to dream big, and to pursue that dream with no guarantees . . . THAT takes courage.
