Happy to Lose

I went to see a film earlier this week, Next Goal Wins. It’s an underdog story which speaks to me immediately and it was funny and heart warming and tear inducing. There’s some lovely performances from actors you’d never normally get to see because it’s the story of how America Samoa (a territory of the United States in the South Pacific Ocean) are shit at soccer and all they want to do is score a goal at international level. Michael Fassbender plays the alcoholic former star manager who is sent to coach this awful team and in the process find some peace. I loved the performances of David Fane as Ace, the mild mannered and loving coach and Oscar Kightley as Tavita, the understanding head of Football Federation America Samoa. Go and see the film.

The big thing that I took from the film and the one I’ve been thinking about ever since is being happy to lose. At a pivotal point the players need to relax because they’re so tense about winning or losing and they don’t want to lose. When they relax and don’t worry about winning or losing, they play better. All that tension bleeds away and that frees them up to shine. It’s a tale as old as time, but I still feel like we need to be reminded every once in a while that we need to feel ok to lose. Especially when really, the stakes are not that high.

I used to play team sports. In my time and not all at once – cricket, rugby, soccer, mixed netball, dodgeball and non-contact American football. Some obvious ones and not so obvious. I don’t play any team sports now, but I do watch a lot of team sports. In the past, when I’ve played or watched sports, I’ve found myself to be tense, to be wound up, to worry and fret over losing. Now most of us have that desire to win, but it used to be that I wasn’t enjoying my sport because the whole thing was bound up by that need to win. I still want my teams to win, I just don’t get as upset when they lose.

I suppose over the years that desire to win has dissipated and been replaced with enjoying what I’m doing. The sport I’ve played the longest was non-contact American football for the Northants Phantoms. I stayed with the team a long time and received multiple hefty injuries during that time resulting in two knee operations which left me side-lined for twelve months an operation. But I trained hard and I went back. And in the beginning we lost a lot of games. But it was never about winning. It was about training hard and playing fair and playing together as a team. The morale and camaraderie we had as a team was special for me. We played for each other, we picked each other up. I wanted to win, but playing to the best of our ability, playing hard and playing with my team mates was more important.

Now that my sense of self is less bound up with winning, this seeps into other aspects of my life. I don’t need to be first, I don’t need to be at the front. I can watch from the back and enjoy the fact that others are getting their time. And this has helped me when I act and understanding the sort of people that I want to work with. Acting is a collective, creative process. Stepping back a little and letting others have their moment, safe in the knowledge that you’ll get yours and that person will support you, has made me a better actor. I don’t need to ‘win’ acting.