HOW TO LEARN HOW TO LOSE TO WIN.

Show me a good loser and I will show you a loser.
All of wish that success came easily. No one likes difficulty... no one likes adversity. No one likes obstacles and setbacks.
But it is the struggle for success that makes success so great. If success came easy, everyone would have it. The fact that success is difficult to attain is what makes it so special and rewarding. Any body can be a loser and most are, few can be called a winner.
The majority of athletes, even the great ones, experience many losses along the path to success. It is with these losses that we make adjustments and learn to change things that will help us to improve. Tiger Woods loses 90% of the time. Johnny Archer loses somewhere every week.

I have seen Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus play like dogs, miss the cut and come back next week and win. I have seen them in a leading postion on the final day and choke like a dog and have a horrendous collapse that would gut a normal man, and come back the next week and win. They forget their past defeats, turn the page after the obit, and focus on the game being played today.
The process of overcoming these losses is what strengthens our mind and soul. Overcoming adversity is what makes us tough. Think about it... meeting resistance is exhausting. It tears us down - it wears us out. Compare it to lifting weights. In strength training we lift weights (resistance) so we can tear down our muscles. We get tired from lifting weights. And then with proper rest and nutrition, our bodies rebuild... stronger than before. Then we lift more weights for more repeititions, tearing down our muscles again, and then through proper diet and rest our muscles rebuild to an even stronger state.
Losses are just like those weights. They are heavy, they are difficult to handle - they are no fun. But by experiencing losses it allows for, even promotes the growth within sport that we desperately need to succeed. Without facing these losses head on and overcoming them it would be difficult to grow.
You have to lose first, in order to learn how to win.