The theory of success and failure - Ex-national badminton champion Aditi Mutatkar decodes life and sports
Every player is constantly juggling with success and failure. In my experience as a player, I have learned how best to tackle both and choose a middle path.
My grandmother told me some of the best stories as a child. They ranged from fairies, witches, Gods, kings and queens, and robbers and policemen. The list could keep on going. After every
As I grew older I
As an athlete, you have to learn that nothing is permanent.
Being an athlete you have to mature very quickly and sometimes deal with life's toughest questions even before you cross your teens. Hence to deal with the pressure very early in my career I exposed myself to meditation. I was fascinated by the stories of Mahabharata and sometimes would also indulge myself in reading a few pages of The Gita. I was also a fan of Gautama Buddha. Â I never looked at spirituality as a philosophical subject. It always was very practical for me. I wanted to keep calm and be focused as a player and meditation helped me achieve that. I looked at meditation as a means to a victorious end.
Both Buddha and The Gita talk about two fundamental things which have stayed with me and which I think has helped me the most as an athlete. The first is Karma yoga and the second is choosing the middle path. Karma yoga literally means doing selfless actions as a way to perfection. You set yourself a goal and keep working towards it in spite of your failures and success and never stop till you achieve your desired result. The second is choosing to be on the middle path. The middle path is your ability to react to failure or success in the same way. To be in a space where neither failure nor success can affect your inner peace. It is our ability  to find a constant state of happiness. Both Karmayoga and finding that middle path are most difficult things to achieve but every successful athlete has dealt with them and has found his or her own way to achieve it. To be a successful athlete the most important thing is to achieve a constant state of happiness in spite of failures and, to be centered in your emotions in every circumstance you face. If you are happy you think better, you train harder and you feel much more motivated.Â
As an athlete, you have to learn that nothing is permanent. If you have lost ten matches in a row you might win the eleventh one. If you have won ten matches in a row you might lose the eleventh one. The most important thing in a player's career is to understand that you can never react to success and failure with
Never play to lose, give all your energy to win. But if you lose, then learn, make improvements, and know that success will come if you believe in it.
In my career as an
Never play to lose, give all your energy to win. But if you lose, then learn, make improvements, and know that success will come if you believe in it. I have to end this article with my favorite quote by Rudyard Kipling- "If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with triumph and disaster, And treat those two imposters just the same; And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!"Â
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