The “If You Ain’t First, You’re Last” Mindset is Poison
I was talking with a young athlete yesterday and he dropped one of the quotes I despise most. As I was attempting to shed light on how difficult it was to be a placer at a tough high school wrestling tournament like Super 32, he interrupted me and blurted out “if you ain’t first, you’re last.”
While I was able to stop myself from giving him a tongue-lashing lecture of epic proportions at his use of this awful cliché movie quote from Talladega Nights, I couldn’t just let it go as rhetorical humor on his part either. So, in a nutshell this is what I told him.
Even as a joke, you must nip this thinking in the bud to keep it from poisoning your mindset.
If not, this “if you ain’t first, you’re last” mindset will cause you to believe you must be perfect for anything to be worth it. Which is just not true.
What is true is that the “if you ain’t first, you’re last” mindset is just an excuse to quit when things aren’t perfect. Instead of working to take every situation as an opportunity to improve, those with this mindset use anything less than the perfect performance as a reason to stop trying their hardest.
However, in sports being the best has nothing to do with being perfect and everything to do with persistence. Subsequently, an athlete’s ability to consistently be first and not last depends on their ability to stay focused and keep working hard even on their worst days. It’s on these days, when things are not going as planned, when there is the greatest opportunity to grow. Moreover, growth is what ultimately matters above all else.