Dealing with disapointments

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

above post reported, though i did get a kick out of "wildstang" being from canada

Should I be flattered that they copied my post from earlier in the thread?!?

[Jared Russell]

Good advice here so far. To add/reiterate:

1. Time will help frame all disappointments. It has a special way of letting you remove yourself from your situation and seeing it for what it is. And I know for a fact that MORT has much to be proud of.

2. In FIRST, as in almost all aspects of life, there is a lot of luck that needs to go your way to get the top prizes. If you truly did all you could do then there is no reason to hang your head.

3. You can let disappointment affect you in many ways. You can be angry, you can be sad, or you can let it push you to be better. The operative point is that it is you who decides how to let it affect you. The way chosen by most of the successful people in FIRST should be obvious.

[ttldomination]

First off, let me tell you that I feel almost exactly the same way. This year we also went 5-2 in Galileo, but we know that teams are better than us. Also, this year marked our third year without a regional win. That is the longest period that our team has ever gotten and so me, as a leader, i feel the pressure.

But this year we had a lot of ambitious people who took these loses in stride and learned from them. In the past I just assumed we'd get a win sooner to later, but now I'm convinced that we need to work harder or else we're won't succeed at the levels that the team desires.

The only thing you can do now is to take the loss and let it fuel your desire for better things in the future.

[Valkyrie133]

Team 1511 went 5-2-0 on Newton, just as you folks did on Galileo. We were seeded 12th and did some pretty amazing stuff on the field, yet were not chosen during alliance selections. (And there was another team seeded even higher that wasn't chosen - my sincere apologies for not remembering who that was, I'm still sleep-deprived!!)

Was it disappointing? Yes, but the truth is that if you want to be "fairly" rewarded for your accomplishments, you must compete in 1) an individual event, with 2) objective measurements. There's a large amount of luck and subjectivity in FIRST events, and you have to rely not only on your teammates but on other teams that you may be completely unfamiliar with. That means that sometimes you'll get a lucky break, and sometimes you'll be passed over. It's the nature of the competition.

The best consolation is to know that your team did the best it could. If you did your best, learned something, and had fun...well, that's what FIRST is all about!

[Andrew Schreiber]

Akash, Im going to give you some advice that I have followed for the last couple years in all that I do.

Fail Faster, Learn More, Focus and Execute

If you guys feel you failed (didn't get picked/pick) then you need to find what lessons you can take from it and how you can improve. Then you need to focus on the CHANGES and Execute them. If you feel your robot wasn't up to par with the other robots consider revising your design process. If you feel your drivers were not as good as they could have been perhaps you need to rethink how you choose them/train them. (I'm not saying either of these was the problem, just stating examples)

Remember, design is an iterative process, you are never done. You can always improve, apply this philosophy to everything you do and sooner or later you will find yourself down on Einstein (or however you measure success)

[gorrilla]

after we went 1-6 on newton,I felt pretty bummed ...

I dont know about you guys really, But loosing makes it easier for me to win next time, because, now I have a even better reason to win

I just remember that I built that robot(with help) and it worked, and thats something alot of people couldent do.......

[Tetraman]

Losing sucks. It even happens to the best of them. Thats all that can really be said. Except for learn from the dissappointments for next year and come back with a vengance.

[Rob]

I would say that the first thing is to not feel guilty about being disappointed in an on field performance. Everyone strives to do well and this is a competition. People enter a competition to win after all.

I would suggest 3 methods to help:

1) Make lots of friends on other teams. They can help root for you when you do well, you have friends to cheer for when they do well. It gives you a good support network of people who have been on both sides of the coin.

2) Try to manage your expectations. It is really really hard to do well. 5-2 against some of the best that FIRST has to offer is something to be proud of. It is hard to get noticed even when you do well because there are so many good teams to look at. You could have made a potential division winner out of teams that were not even selected on the Newton field (off the top of my head 1155, 846 & 1511 would have been very competitive). This is just part of the nature of the champioship event.

3) Try to set a non-competition related goal for yourself or your team. Maybe something like a list of specific people to meet, maybe compile information on certain teams designs that you like, maybe some social event where your team hooks up with another team. Something like that can be rewarding as well.

O yeah, and also have fun!

[johnr]

Perspective- Atleast you made it to Atlanta.
We finished 14th overall in Michigan and actually earned the right to go to Atlanta for the first time. No money,no go. Thankfully we had no seniors on the team to disappoint and next years seniors may have learned a good lesson about funding.

[Adama]

I think that a lot of teams on CD are far more developed and successful than the masses of other teams out there. With that said you have to keep your accomplishments or supposed lack there of in perspective. CD is not the norm for team performance.

There are teams that have little to no money and are poorly led that go to a single regional every year not sure if they will drive even half of their matches. I doubt MORT has ever finished at 61st out of 64 teams at a regional. So while you are disappointed think of what you have done and how fortunate you are to have the leadership and money to even put a functional robot down and have a team that flows and you can enjoy being on and learning on.

[Laaba 80]

Originally Posted by Valkyrie133

(And there was another team seeded even higher that wasn't chosen - my sincere apologies for not remembering who that was, I'm still sleep-deprived!!)

That would be us. We were the 11th seed and we didnt make it. If we had won our last match we would have been guaranteed 2nd seed, possibly 1st. We lost by 4 points, but it didnt bother me because I really felt we would get picked. We had some great matches offensively, and played D on 1625, handing their only loss in qualifications. I was disappointed, not because we lost, but because i dont get to drive until next year. Later I realized our record this year was 23-8, WAY better than we have ever done before, and that cheered me up.

[EOC]

As the drafting team from the Galileo Division # 8 Alliance, team 1208 based its choices on the data from its scouts, not on won lost record. Our scouts thought team 56 (3-4-0) and team 207 (3-4-0) were the best available. Were they right? Who knows? When the draft was over I was shocked at some of the teams who were not picked, teams 11, 20 and 494 all had great robots and would have been excellent choices. I know how it feels not to be picked. I also know that it has driven our team to excel the next year.

[Alan Anderson]

We were disappointed -- though not really surprised -- when we didn't make it into the Aim High elimination rounds in Atlanta. That was a real kicker at the end of what was for us a pretty dismal season. But we had developed a great team in the process, and that ended up being much more significant than not having a good robot.

[BPetry234]

It's corny and on kindergarden wall in every state in America but here is the way I see it...

"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss you'll end up among the stars."

I feel very honored to have been on Cyber Blue 234 the past two years. Last year we had a great comunity outreach program but didn't preform as well as we wanted to as far as the robot goes. We still had a season other teams would kill for, though, and I am happy to have been a part of that.

This year we wanted more. We pushed harder then we ever had. We set the goal of winning the whole thing in Atlanta and worked our butts off. Not saying that it wasn't always a goal, but that was our drive, our push.

We won DC and took second at BMR with the help of our partners. (Thank you 45. You guys a first rate team and I wish you the best of luck next year and on.) It was a great season just right there but we still had Atlanta in our sights. It didn't turn out like we wanted it to, but it is possible to succede in failure.

I will make my decision on how this year went when next years' season is over. I know that I did my job as a senior if Cyber Blue continues to push for exellence. That is all you can do, pass on your knowladge to the younger students around you. For them, there is another season, another game.

Set your goals as high as your team thinks they can achieve (drafted, drafting, win awards, regional champs, world champs, etc) and go for them. Let the chips fall and have no regrets.

[nlknauss]

Akash - From being around the block in your area a while I really have to commend you and Mort's leadership for their accomplishments this year. You guys are really a lot of fun to watch and are really a complete team.

Your story sort of reminds me of my time on Team 87 in 2002. We were regional finalists, won some awards, and earned our way to Championships. We got down to Epcot, performed well but didn't make it past alliance selections for finals despite our prior resume. What I learned that year was that (1) you shouldn't discount your accomplishments and (2) learn from the experience. I've been "let down" many times but the experiences are really what it's all about.