You lost. 

You may or may not think you did, but in the end, it isn’t your decision. It’s the judges have a say in it, the ref has a say in it, you have some say in it and by extension your opponent has a say in it. But, sometimes, whether you choose you admit it or not, you lose.

Strangely, though, you are in the same position going forward as if you had won:

 “Where do I go from here?” And part of what you will determine as a way foreward has to do with who you surround yourself with. 

I lump people in to two groups after a loss, and consider their advice accordingly. In one group we have the guys who are my friends or family but they have never trained or competed at a high level (especially in a combat sport) and they are going to be supportive at almost any cost. They can’t be blamed for this, because they don’t actually fully understand everything that goes into judging or winning a match/bout/fight. Though they mean well, telling someone ‘you won that fight’ isn’t super helpful in the end. I just appreciate the support. 

Which brings me to group 2, and that’s people who are your coaches and training partners. And in this I have two general groups as well. There are those that are supportive of you either way, and are looking forward to helping you improve, either way. Then… there are those that don’t want to be completely honest with you (or maybe themselves) for whatever reason. The fact is, you lost. We can argue about rules or this or that all day long, but you cannot continuing thinking that whatever got you anything less than 1^st place will eventually materialize into a gold medal.

Now, I do want to clarify that a little. After ANY match there are many things you did right, and probably many things you could improve on. Even things you did correctly, and were successful with, could possibly be tightened up and improved on. That’s an important part of analyzing training as you move up against better and more technical opponents. Failure to recognize that you did not train the hardest or smartest and that, for whatever reason, you lost is not going to help you improve. Also, think of how disrespectful and dismissive of your opponent that is to even think that way. If you honestly think you trained as hard and as smart as possible and yet they were able to, in the mind of other people who are qualified to officiate such a contest, beat you, then they too put an enormous amount of work into training for that match. Respect it, acknowledge it, and learn to beat them by adapting slightly or greatly to the circumstances you chose to compete in.

And lastly is this. You lost. That’s not who you are, it’s what happened. It’s an event and not something that is intrinsic to your being. The act of training hard and competing against actual competition in which people are pushing you will always make you better than you were previously. By the day of a fight/bout/tournament/match, and especially after, I remind myself that now this is just a training event for the next one. I try to surround myself with positive people who are constructively critical of me and honest when I need. People I can trust to show me the hard truth before my opponent does. I may not always be able to control the outcome but I can always control my attitude and my effort.