When we lose, it’s easy to play down the whole situation.

It was not so important after all.

Others were lucky.

That single decision was unfair and really cut my chances.

I did not give my best, but if I would have..

The context was heavily against me.

It’s a defence mechanism that puts space between us and the failure so that we don’t feel like such. And it tells of a tendency to see loss as failure.

Of course, if we want to avoid losing more in the future, we’d be better off by owning the loss and trying to see what went wrong. What it is that is under our control and that we can do better.

That’s the sign of a winning mentality.