I think kids today get robbed. By getting a trophy for just competing, they lose the chance to enjoy the novelty of WINNING a trophy. And don’t we all love winning?

Maybe winning is just a 1980’s concept that should be put to bed. But doesn’t it just FEEL good to win? Do you care about the actual trophy? No. But you care about how it FEELS to win that trophy.

Nowadays we cater to the kids and make sure we don’t let anyone feel bad for not getting a trophy. We tell the winners that it’s not that important to win, what’s more important is that no one actually lost. No matter what the score was, everyone gets a trophy just for trying.

But a trophy for trying doesn’t make you FEEL great. It doesn’t make you celebrate. Winning is a form of accomplishment, and when you accomplish something with a group, you develop a bond, a shared story, a memory that will last longer than the trophy itself. The trophy is simply a representation of what you earned, and what you felt when you achieved your shared goal.

When professionals win, reporters ask what it feels like. Winning doesn’t feel like anything else. It feels like winning. We all wish we had more moments in our life that felt like winning, not vice versa.

Winning is an emotion we have to earn. Every time we are deprived of a trophy that we see someone else get we say, “I can’t get that trophy unless I win, so I will try harder to win.” Consider that vs “I get a trophy no matter what, so who cares if I win.”

When the joy of having something is deprived from us, we try harder, we want it more, we feel more strongly about it.

Sure, losing stings. Losing hurts. Losing makes you mad and when you lose you think perhaps a trophy for participating would make that loss feel better. But all the hurt from losing is magnified 10 fold when you win.

And you will win. You will persevere and gut it out and battle until you get that win.

And that feeling is worth it.

Let’s not rob our kids of the joy of winning to spare them the pain of losing. The winning is worth it. No matter how young or old you are.