essay on adapt to win
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If you are getting whipped playing by the existing rules, get used to losing or change the game. If you can’t win by standing and fighting then run and hide. If you can’t win by being big, be small. If you can’t win by being small, be big. The first rule of winning is that there is more than one way to win.
In 2011, Tiger Woods slipped to number 58 in the world golf rankings. This was his lowest ranking since the first months of his professional career that began in 1996 at only 20 years old and led to him reaching number 1 after only 10 months – the fastest ascent to the top spot in history.
Tiger was so dominant that there were rumours that rivals pressured tournament directors into redesigning courses in an attempt to make them ‘tiger-proof’. The focus was on his ability to hit the ball further than other players, his demigod physique and his billion-dollar earnings.
The first rule of winning is that there is more than one way to win.
The problems came when allegations, and then details, about his private life emerged in 2009 culminating in a much-publicised car crash outside his home on thanksgiving night and whirling speculation about whether or not his wife had chased him with a golf club after some of her suspicions were confirmed. After that there were denials, admissions, public tiger-style apologies and abandonment by several lucrative brands. His mother stuck by him, as did Nike.
My focus here is not what he did or did not do before the trouble began but how he was able to regain his form after losing it when overwhelmed by a social situation that had become toxic. If the environment had no impact, he would have continued to win but he didn’t.
He was confronted by hostility from the media, his face on the cover of tabloids for three weeks running, criticism from some of his fellow players, and, what certainly looked like, a painful breakup of his marriage.
What is most valuable to students of adaptability is to understand how he didn’t keep falling and why he was able to recover, and succeed again. He found a way of winning his own game, he found another way.
By March 2013, he was once again the world No. 1. And in 2019, he won his first major in 11 years. The 2019 Masters at the age of 43.
People who can renew themselves, as Tiger did, are said, by psychologists, to possess the characteristic of resilience. In my work, they are termed high adaptability, high achievement individuals - sometimes referred to with the acronym HAHA in a tongue-in-cheek way because they laugh in the face of uncertainty.
These are people who are able to regroup quickly when attacked by circumstances so that being overwhelmed is temporary, part of a process of positive transformation, rather than a permanent negative condition. They are open to experiences, even seemingly bad experiences, so they can keep learning, even from the worst times. They don’t merely cope, they want to transcend.
When something unforeseen happens, these people feel that they can find a solution. They view their personal problems as solvable, look for good news even on bad days, and believe that they can accomplish their goals. They are typically able to reach out to other people, making new friends and getting the help they need to feel optimistic and find answers.
These characteristics have been shown by Dr. Oddgeir Friborg, a psychologist at the University of Tromso in Norway, to be strongly linked to well-being, healthy adjustment because they help people adapt successfully.
As a child, Tiger was already of media interest as the toddler drove balls on the range aged only two-years –old in way that has been argued to be about early specialisation. Yet, it has also been pointed out that his coach, Rudy Duran, encouraged him to “play golf first rather than to teach him to hit a ball” and “guided him” rather than merely developing the technical side of his swing.
This style of coaching emphasised the ability to find a way of adapting to win, or succeed, where a blend of imagination, observation and determination is needed.
After the Wenchuan earthquake, which killed 68,000 people in central China, there were perhaps 11 million people le