If you follow sports competitions, matches, and races, you can often see athletes who achieve top results and step onto the podium, yet look incredibly dissatisfied. On the other hand, you also see athletes who finish their performances happy and content, regardless of a (poor) ranking. Similarly, some athletes barely even celebrate their victory, while others are completely euphoric.
Athlete Expectations
While expectations don’t need much explanation, it’s important to emphasize that they are more than mere predictions of the future; they also contain a component of hoping for a desired outcome (positive expectations) or fearing an undesirable outcome (negative expectations).
The specificity of positive expectations is that they are accompanied by the belief that the person deserves for that expectation to be fulfilled. When a positive expectation is not met, a strong feeling of injustice and dissatisfaction arises.
In other words, an athlete expects to win a medal at a competition because they deserve it. If they don’t win that medal, “justice has not been served” because the athlete did not get what belongs to them (what they “deserve”), leaving them feeling cheated, sad, and disappointed. On the other hand, this normative standard does not accompany negative expectations. If a negative expectation is not met, people might feel a sense of confusion because reality doesn’t match what they envisioned, but at the same time, they experience pleasant emotions like relief and happiness.
Elite Athletes Are Bad Losers
There is an old, well-known proverb that says “it is worst to have and then to lose,” and it is closely tied to our expectations. We can divide positive expectations into two types: (I) maintenance expectations and (II) acquisition expectations. To put it more simply, an athlete can expect to win because they won last time (maintenance), or they can expect to achieve a better result than they did last time (acquisition).
When a maintenance expectation is not met, it is far more painful than when an acquisition expectation goes unfulfilled. An athlete who is used to being the best has a much harder time handling defeat than an athlete who hasn’t won much but expected a victory. Elite athletes are very often ‘bad losers’ because they lose something they already possessed, and they constantly compare their current state of loss to their previous state of gain—meaning, victory. For athletes who are not used to winning all the time, even if a victory is expected in the moment, such comparisons do not occur because winning is not considered a “normal occurrence.”
Why Are Some Athletes Less Satisfied with a Victory Than Others?
When a maintenance expectation is not met, it is far more painful than when an acquisition expectation goes unfulfilled. An athlete who is used to being the best has a much harder time handling defeat than an athlete who hasn’t won much but expected a victory. Elite athletes are very often ‘bad losers’ because they lose something they already possessed, and they constantly compare their current state of loss to their previous state of gain—meaning, victory. For athletes who are not used to winning all the time, even if a victory is expected in the moment, such comparisons do not occur because winning is not considered a “normal occurrence.”
Expectations are responsible for the graceful victories and ungraceful defeats of elite athletes, as well as for the utter euphoria of certain athletes who didn’t win, weren’t the best, yet still celebrate as if they were.
How Are Expectations Built?
Do you notice how expectations are to blame for an athlete’s sadness or anger after a loss? Does that mean we should expect the worst just to avoid disappointment?
Of course not!
The Connection to Goals
It is completely understandable to feel sad if you lose a race, a match, or a game, but it is possible to take certain steps that help you deal with disappointment. Our expectations are directly linked to our goals. We have already discussed the importance of goal setting in previous blogs, and now we emphasize once more why it is crucial to set them correctly. If our goals are realistic and achievable, our expectations align with them, reducing the possibility of major disappointment to a minimum.
Managing expectations, just like setting goals, is a skill that needs to be trained. Although the direct link between expectations and athletic performance is still unclear, it is essential to become aware of your expectations so that you can adjust them to a specific sporting situation. At the same time, this awareness allows you to prepare yourself for all possible outcomes of the upcoming match, race, or game.
