Dealing with disapointments

[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.

[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.

[Bob Steele]

Originally Posted by Bharat Nain

You can only control your own actions.

Bharat had it right.

MORT is a terrific team... and it has been for a long time.
It will continue to be as long as you make it that...

I would hazard a guess that every team except three went away disappointed to some extent on Saturday... at least on the field.
It is natural... if you weren't disappointed with not being champs something would be wrong with you...

We all work so hard... we spend so many hours... we sacrifice for our teams..we get too little sleep...

I know the cliche' "We are all winners..." but it really is more than that ... it is really the truth...

I had the privilege to coach a team for several years that won 1 trophy..never had the opportunity or the money to go to CMP..

Student from that team have gone on to be engineers and scientists and are mentoring other teams now.... they are winners... the team is a winner everytime it steps on the field... They (and many, many other teams..) have overcome the obstacles and accomplished something that most high school students would NEVER even have the fortitude to try to do...

Booker T. Washington once said:

"You measure the size of your accomplishments by the obstacles you had to overcome to reach your goals..."

Just think about what you have done this year... and other years...

My new team went 5-2 on Curie (12th seed) and did not get picked ...
Were we disappointed???

OF COURSE WE WERE!!! but after a little bit... we started to turn that disappointment into action... how can we be better...
What can WE do ...

I think this is the way you have to deal with any disappoinment..
Turn it into an advantage... learn from it...

You have a terrific team and a terrific history...

The 2010 Season starts now...... get started...

[Akash Rastogi]

I want to thank you all for taking the time out to help me on this. It means the world to me to find out how others perceive us. I feel much better. I just wanted to make it clear that this opinion was just coming from me individually, not my team.

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

If you are just going to dwell on the perceived injustice of it all then you are just going to come across as bitter and that's really not going to do you or your team any good.

I do not feel bitter at all about not being selected as that was not the advice I was looking for.

[smurfgirl]

There is a lot of luck involved with competitions- the matches you end up with can change the outcome of where you seed by a lot, which may cause some people to misunderstand how strong any given team actually performs. If you are experienced enough, you will realize that seeding and whether or not you are selected for elims is not a measure of how strong you are as a team... but not every scouter/team has made this realization. Often, "the wrong" teams are selected. On Galileo this year, there were so many strong teams that they simply couldn't all be in elims. There were some things that surprised me- how did 25 and 971 last so long? How did 1124 get picked so soon? But again... part of this competition is luck. A good team may get overlooked, a team with lesser performance may be picked on a whim because the captain saw them last or their spirit stuck in his head.

I would not take your team's performance on Galileo as a sign of personal failure, or even failure on the part of your team. People throughout the country and the world know that MORT stands for excellence and is consistently a leader and an inspiration in the FIRST community. People still recognize that. Anyone who has ever visited Chief Delphi knows what wise words you speak and how many things you personally have done to help other teams and other individuals.

Some things speak more powerfully about a team and about a person than whether or not they played in elims at the Championship. Your efforts in the community, your gracious professionalism, your character and endless spirit- these are the things that people will remember for a long time. In two or four or ten years, no one will remember your performance on Galileo, but I bet the name EWCP will still stick in people's minds. These are the things that matter, the values and the goals that outlast any one competition or season or drive team.

I realize how frustrating and disappointing it can be to watch your team not be selected, especially when it seems deserving, but I would focus on bigger picture. The main goal of FIRST is not just to build a winning robot- the competition is a means to something much greater and more beautiful than that. You and your team have embraced this greater mission, and you should be proud to be recognized for that.

[AlexD744]

First, I kinda feel how you do right now. And I guess what keeps me from feeling worse than I should is that the second we 971 was picked and we were out of elims, I went to my freinds from Krunch and found out they were picked and started cheering and working with their team. It was great to keep having fun with a team we sharks all love. Is it dissapointing to not be in elims? Yes. But it is amazing to know that you have a team to root for when you don't do so well. I'm sure that MORT with it's long history has a ton of freinds that they could cheer for, my suggestion is to find those people next time. That really helped me.

Also, can this be stickied, I think this thread could help a lot of people, one of which is me.