One cannot win all the time. Each of us loses from time to time, but someone keeps up with dignity, someone loses heart, complains and is disappointed in himself. Of course, the one who controls himself in any circumstances is right, but what does it mean to “survive defeat with dignity”? How should you behave? I consider these questions to be the most relevant for my generation, because we will soon enter a large independent voyage, so we need to immediately take the right course. Reefs and storms lie in wait for everyone, which means you need to learn how to cope with them and respond to them.

Who can teach this important skill? Of course classic literature, examples from which we will analyze in order to find out the answer to the question posed. I remember Goncharov's novel Oblomov. Main character lost the battle for female heart his to the best friend Stolz. Olga sympathized with Ilya Ilyich, but soon realized that by temperament and hobbies she better fit Andrey. Oblomov tried to overcome himself, change and adopt a lifestyle that was alien to his nature. However, against nature, the human will, in the end, turns out to be powerless: everything returns to its full circle. The hero understands this and does not interfere with the happy union that made him unhappy. He resigned himself to fate, sincerely rejoicing for his friends. Ilya Ilyich did not withdraw into himself and did not build secret intrigues against Stolz, but nevertheless he built own life the way you wanted it. He married an economic and good woman, gave himself up to his idleness and dwelt in the physical and peace of mind until the end of days. In my opinion, such a delicate reaction and the complete absence of destructive ambitions is a worthy defeat, because the loser did not seek pity or revenge: he humbled himself for the sake of general harmony.

As a second example, I would like to cite Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. The protagonist caught a huge and valuable catch - a gigantic swordfish. But he was old and weak, swam too far and could not bring anything but the skeleton of a marine inhabitant. On the way, she was gnawed by sharks, almost killing the old man himself. Santiago fought desperately, but what could he oppose dangerous predators? Is that the power of the great human spirit, which turned out to be undefeated. Yes, they laughed at his defeat, but many admitted that he, despite old age, a skilled fisherman and a respectable fellow villager. The old man himself did not kill himself and did not regret, did not boast and did not lie. His reaction was calm and balanced. He equally indifferently listened to praise and condolences, because he suffered a defeat only formally, turning it in his favor. Therefore, a worthy loss in the village was considered a victory.

Thus, to survive the defeat with dignity means to respond in a balanced way to failure and, if possible, get out of problem situation without humiliating their dignity with complaints. You also need to be able to forgive the victory over yourself, since the person is not to blame for being better or more capable. It is necessary to take into account not only your ambitions, but also the feelings of other people, so that your triumph does not turn into a tragedy for them. Worthy to lose is already half of the victory.

Experiencing defeat in sports

Defeat, loss, significant failure are some of the basic experiences of a person. Situations that provoke corresponding experiences occur in any activity throughout life, and therefore attitude towards failure is important characteristic personalities, defines behavior person in many situations. The attitude towards failure is formed in the process of experiencing a significant defeat. In the practice of sports, there is often a situation when, when an athlete is defeated, others insist on reducing the depth of his experience: “Don't worry, this is nonsense!”.

Such a position may perniciously affect personal experience athlete, especially a child. The situation needs to be experienced emotionally and extract the experience that will make a person stronger (more mature). You can extract a full-fledged experience if you include an emotional experience. Just a rational assessment of the situation does not give this experience.

An athlete needs from 2-3 to 48 hours to independently experience the situation of lost competitions, should be allowed to feel the grief of defeat, the collapse of everything, the state of hopelessness.
On one's own- for someone in general alone, for others - in the presence of a person who understands, but does not try to influence the intensity and depth of the experience, does not try to reduce the significance of what happened. This is the time when a person psychologically processes the situation.

After that, you can offer the following tasks, aimed at conscious processing of the situation of defeat.

1. It is necessary to determine what was done well in this speech, it turned out, despite the negative final result. It must be understood that all assessments are relative, and the assessment “everything is bad” is nothing more than a “prism” of perception, the result of perception from a certain angle. Finding the good, the positive, in any bad performance provides a source of motivation and strength to overcome. “If at least I’m good at this, then I can do more (in principle, more is possible).” Increasing self-esteem by highlighting good moments should be specific, based on real actions or facts.

2. The next step is to name 1-2 specific problems, which are on this moment most hinder to perform better. These are the points of application of forces in the upcoming period of preparation (what needs to be changed), for example, set two tasks to work on yourself: one is a priority, the second is additional (next, background, spare) in case the work on the first task fails . It’s not worth highlighting more at the same time, working on many tasks at once is psychologically difficult and does not contribute to increasing confidence.

3. Eliminate the use of the word "unlucky". Its use is the first step to the next loss, the result of the fact that a person subconsciously does not want or is not accustomed to analyze the situation and look for the reasons for his failures in himself. This means that finding a mistake will lead to the recognition of something unpleasant, unusual for a person, and he defends himself with the word "unlucky." A person who is “unlucky” will not change anything in himself, but will simply wait for the next competition, where, perhaps, he will be more lucky. There are always mistakes in any speech.

Example: “What could I have done to avoid this situation? And what didn't I do? What was not taken into account? What in my preparation for the competition led me to such an accident? Even if this is objectively debatable, it is still useful to have the attitude: “There are no accidents in sports at all.”

Example: “If I lost, then it means that I made mistakes. If the opponent won, then it means that he had fewer mistakes.

In practice, there are situations when an athlete loses several competitions in a row, and at the same time neither the athlete nor the coach changes anything in preparing for the competition, in their behavior. (Without thinking about the fact that if you do everything the same as always, then it will turn out, the same as always.) As a rule, the athlete and the coach have some suspicions about the reasons for the failures, maybe he does not consider them justified or refuses to admit it to himself. Such assumptions must be made, if only to be refuted.

4. A paradoxical but justified step is the task develop a clear plan of action (constructive) in case of defeat, "what will I do if I lose again." For example, what I will try to change in my behavior and my preparation. Uncertainty (fear of the unknown) is removed, which reduces possible fear failure and increases confidence in the possibility of solving the problem. To avoid defeat in some cases, you must first accept the fact of its possibility. In order for this task not to be a setting for defeat, it is necessary to develop a plan not for the defeat itself, but for actions after a possible defeat.

5. Cultivate the psychological acceptance of a mistake, setting the fact that the error and its selection are necessary for development. Having made mistakes does not mean incapable, everyone makes mistakes, this does not say anything about the personality and abilities in general. Recognition of one's mistakes should not become something to be ashamed of for an athlete, this is an occasion to work, and it's good that there is something to do. Now, if there are no errors, it threatens to stop creative growth and development, if you do not set yourself a more difficult task in time. The following questions need to be asked.

Example: “What needs to be worked on? What is stopping you from reaching your goal? What do I do when I find a mistake?

Effective experience of defeat leads to the fact that the athlete, getting the experience of getting out of the "field of hopelessness of negative emotions", ceases to be afraid of them, ceases to be afraid of defeat, which leads him to greater mental and motor freedom and significantly increases the likelihood of victory, while unsurmounted and "unlived » The fear of defeat fetters the athlete, puts him into a stupor, the person ceases to objectively and timely assess the situation. An athlete who is afraid of losing, diverts his attention to this fear, thinks about how not to lose, i.e. thinks about actions that should not be done, as a result of which he does precisely these actions.

Because they were the focus of his attention, even if they were marked with a "NOT" sign. There is no room for technically correct and winning actions in the field of attention. Subjectively, defeat is not necessarily actually occupied place in the results sheet. The experience depends on what the athlete himself was counting on. In some situations, penultimate place can be an encouraging success, and in others, second place is subjectively tantamount to defeat.

Evgenia TIKHVINSKAYA

Sports psychology: trauma - a tragedy or a reason to think?

“Missed the competition due to injury”, “did not have time to recover ...”, “season down the drain”, “completed sports career due to injury." How often do we hear these words from athletes themselves? different levels, coaches, television commentators, and how rarely do we think about the true meaning of these words. How little we know about the causes of injuries and their consequences. How much they hurt not only the body, but also the soul of the athlete ...

For example, figure skating is among the top ten most traumatic sports. And the reason for this is not only the ever-increasing technical complexity. Features of the sport itself, which requires the simultaneous demonstration of high accuracy of movements in combination with the expressiveness and emotionality of skating, subjective assessment of the performance, high price plucked element, create additional stress on the figure skater's psyche.

Traditionally, the main causes of injury are considered to be physical factors, such as muscle imbalance, falls during the performance of elements, collisions at high speed, overtraining, physical overwork, etc. But few people think about the psychological component of traumas, which play by no means the last role.

The reality of today's sport is such that, coming to the rink at the age of 4-5 "for health", a young skater (and a representative of any other sport) involuntarily joins in the pursuit of results. And sadly, in addition to a demanding coach, there is a certain category of parents who diligently make a “star” out of their child. The child is taught that he must conquer, achieve, win ..., thereby driving him into neurotic state. A skater set up in this way enters the ice with a sense of fear, afraid of not meeting the expectations of a coach or parents. He is in constant nervous and, as a result, muscle tension, which is one of the main sources of injury.

As sportsmanship matures and grows, everyday and personal problems begin to be added to the above stressors. IN adolescence physical exercise figure skater increase many times. In addition, this age is a period of high mental stress, because. the “sense of adulthood” that is being formed here constantly pushes the teenager to self-affirmation, and he still does not have enough opportunities and skills for this. Hence its conflict and inconsistency.

At first glance, it may seem strange, but it is conflicts, both interpersonal and intrapersonal, that are the most important psychological factor that increases the likelihood sports injuries. Tensions with a coach, partner, parents directly affect the concentration and composure of an athlete on the ice. Intrapersonal conflict is complicated by the fact that it is most often not noticeable to others, which makes it difficult to resolve. For example, an athlete faces a choice: end his sports career or continue. In this case, all his thoughts are occupied with weighing the pros and cons, attention is scattered, nervous tension is transferred to the muscles, the body "stops obeying" and ... Thus, internal conflict resolved by injury. In a situation where the injury is not severe, the athlete gets a pause to rest and think. In the event of a serious injury, he is forced to end his career, then the dilemma is resolved by itself.

When reaching the level of the highest sportsmanship, an athlete, as a rule, is faced with an exacerbation of already chronic, untreated injuries. In sports, there are rare cases when a person has the opportunity to recover until a full recovery. There are many reasons for this, ranging from high level motivation, ending with pressure from the inner circle. Non-recovery, both physical and psychological, entails the fear of recurrence of the trauma. Uncertainty appears, especially before the element, during the execution of which the damage was received. Uncertainty coupled with negative thoughts and disturbances muscle tone, sadly, again leads to injury.

How does sports psychology explain why the above stressful situations cause injury? First, the feeling of "threat" leads to increased levels of anxiety. Which, in turn, causes a number of changes in concentration. It also reduces the ability to analyze the situation. And, finally, a violation of concentration of attention forces the athlete to pay attention to extraneous objects, to allow thoughts that are not directly related to the case.

Secondly, an increase in the level of anxiety leads to an increase in muscle tension and disrupts coordination, movements become constrained, and “inhibition” appears when perceiving information. In this case, from the athlete you can hear such phrases as “the body does not obey”, “wooden legs”. All of these increase the risk of injury.

Trauma is serious challenge the willpower of an athlete. How a person reacts to trauma depends more on their individual characteristics: a serious injury can be tolerated quite easily by one athlete and not have negative consequences. Whereas for another, even a small injury is a whole tragedy.

The most typical, "normal" reaction of most people to trauma is the reaction of grief, which includes several stages. Immediately after the incident, the person does not believe in what happened, tries to deny the very fact of the injury. Then, after awareness, the second stage begins - the stage of anger, when the athlete begins to scold and blame himself and others. Next comes the deal. For example, an athlete may promise that if he is "lucky" to recover quickly, he will warm up more thoroughly, train harder, become more attentive, etc. At the fourth stage, there is a full awareness of the fact of trauma and its consequences. This stage is dangerous with the possibility of the appearance of depressive moods. The fifth phase is the acceptance phase, when the athlete emerges from depression and is ready to focus his energy on rehabilitation and return to physical activity.

The speed of passing through all five stages can vary from 1-2 days to several months, depending on the individual characteristics of the person. These are mandatory stages that every injured athlete goes through, only their duration can be different. But sometimes trauma is accompanied by extremely negative psychological consequences, such as irritability, depression, increased levels of fear and anxiety. The skater worries about whether he will be able to recover, whether he will not get re-injured. A decrease in self-confidence can lead to a decrease in motivation, a drop in self-esteem. In an injured athlete, intrapersonal conflicts are aggravated, an uncontrolled invasion may occur. intrusive thoughts about the traumatic situation. However, with the help of certain psycho-corrective influences, it is possible to shorten the time for passing through these stages, mobilize the athlete, prevent the development of a pathological reaction, preventing him from getting hung up on his misfortune.

Trauma is always a stop, it is a time of doubt, fear, reassessment of reality. However, it is during this period that new strategy preparation and behavior of the skater in competitions. A forced pause can both give an impetus to the transition to the next stage in the development of sportsmanship, and nullify the efforts and achievements of past years. A coach always has the opportunity to help his athlete emerge victorious from this crisis. Regardless of whether the symptoms of a “negative” reaction have appeared, the coach needs to apply some methods of psycho-corrective influence. True, it is first necessary to soberly assess whether he will be able to influence the athlete on his own or whether the help of a specialist will be required.

Unfortunately, sport is always associated with injuries. However, this is not a reason to get depressed and give up on yourself. Trauma is an experience, a very important experience of overcoming pain, fears, doubts. Use this time to reflect on what needs to be changed in your life that led to the trauma and thereby protect yourself from such troubles. After all, an injury is not a tragedy, but an occasion to think!

Maria KRASILTSEVA

There is a difference between real defeat and feeling defeated. Don't dwell on things that have already happened, but instead try to focus your attention on how to do the right thing next time in a similar situation. Remind yourself that all bad things sooner or later will remain in the past. Try to let go of what you can no longer change, and do your best to respect people or circumstances that have surpassed you.

Steps

Part 1

Understand your emotions. Think about your experience and try to understand how you feel about it. If you are angry, ask yourself why this is happening. Before you can accept and learn to control your emotions, you must first understand them.

• Think about how you would feel if you didn't fail. Compare your two states, and understand what remains similar in them.
• Write down your thoughts and feelings. Talk to someone you trust, such as close friend or a family member, about your feelings. Chances are you know how to deal with your emotions, so do your best to deal with the situation.

1. Convince yourself. Tell yourself that there is no reason to "feel wrong." Emotions cannot be good or bad in nature. They just happen, and it's great if you can accept them. Recognize the fact that all your feelings are quite acceptable.

   • Keep in mind that while it is important to be aware of your emotions, it is very unwise to follow some of them (such as anger or self-loathing).

2. Think about perspective. You may not be able to prevent personal defeat, but you can control your reaction to what is happening. Take a deep breath and try to be as reasonable as possible. Remind yourself that you cannot change what has already happened. This attitude will allow you to be more insightful and adapt faster, and you will begin to navigate and feel better when similar negative or failure situations arise in the future.

   Don't take yourself too seriously. The situation can always get worse. Consider if there are positives that you didn't immediately notice. Try to come up with humor about what happened and move on with a smile on your face, even though it may be difficult for you. You can understand that the situation is much funnier or more absurd if you abstract from personal interests.

   Accept defeat. In the moment of failure, your emotions can influence your point of view. Don't dwell on what's already happened and don't let your failures keep defeating you. You may be bursting with anger, disappointment or resentment: such feelings will only devour you from the inside. Learn to recognize these emotions, but not to cling to them and toss them aside.

   • You can move forward by letting go of the negativity, or you can find yourself in a constant search for ways of retribution. By letting go of defeat, you will be free from it, while the desire for retribution will only bind you more to failure.
   • Don't judge yourself. Accept that defeat is part of life. People will always face failures, but they all deal with them differently.

   Part 2

   Be a worthy competitor

   1. Learn to lose with dignity. Show respect for the people and circumstances that have gotten the better of you. Shake your opponent's hand and congratulate you on a job well done. Don't be petty if you lose a fight, debate, or competition. You cannot change the outcome with your negative attitude towards the winner. Be as polite and kind as possible.

      • Thank your opponents for their time and congratulate them on their victory. If you lose with dignity, the winner will most likely feel uncomfortable when he is in Once again brag about your accomplishments. It changes the game from a winner-loser game to a relationship between two people who respect each other and have a good time together.

   2. Don't let judgment affect you. Let others judge you for your failure. You know who you really are and you don't need to justify yourself to people who don't know you well enough. Be the center of yourself. Defeat with dignity will be your biggest victory.

      • Everyone around should encourage everyone to take part. If they forget their role, then you should not forget yours. Be interested in defending your interests.

   3. Don't blame. If you start blaming another person, group of people, or circumstances that contributed to your defeat, then you will not be able to fully comprehend what happened. Blaming yourself will make you unhappy, and you will miss the chance to gain useful experience. Try to look at the situation this way: what happened, happened, and no amount of self-flagellation can change that.

      Focus on admiring your opponent, not on your mistakes. Praise your opponents for their quick wits and spectacular actions. This position gives you additional advantages, which allows you to adopt effective strategies and work on identifying your shortcomings.

      Admit that you were wrong. If you lost an argument or made a weak argument, then you can improve your image by admitting the possibility that you were wrong. After all, it is more humiliating to cling to what has already happened than to admit that someone did the right thing.

   Part 3

   Forward movement

   Try to make the most of the situation. If you can accept defeat as a rewarding experience rather than a contemptuous failure, then you will be able to move beyond the current situation and move on. You may have been defeated, but you should not become a loser. You're not a loser, if you stay on top, you'll endure useful knowledge and continue to move forward in life with a smile on your face. You have grown above yourself and learned something new. If this is how you perceive each defeat, then each time it will be much easier for you to endure them, and over time you will realize that you won in something else: in self-education and self-improvement.

   • Try to take it for granted that failure has a place in your life. Ask yourself about the reasons for failure; understand what can be learned from the situation; figure out why it happened.
   • Think about the reasons for the failure and if there is anything you can do about it. Ask if you were subconsciously setting yourself up for failure because you weren't sure that the goal you wanted to achieve was the right one.

   1. Learn from your mistakes. Think back to what happened and learn from it. Objectively analyze the situation. Understand what you can really do to avoid future failure. Focus on perspective.

      • The more you focus on future wins, the better impressions you will have of your last loss. Not all champions have won their first match. You will commit rash acts if you cannot accept defeat with dignity. People are sure to notice your inability to handle failure like a mature person.

   2. Keep competing. No matter what caused you to fail, don't let it stop you from doing what you love. Most people face at some point the desire to give up. You will never get better if you don't keep trying, and you may regret later on if you give up because of one loss.

   • By learning not to take defeat personally, you will be able to deal with it much easier. Conquer defeat with positive thinking.
   • Defeat should be about the situation, not the people. The goal is to win the challenge, not to beat the other player. If you have many opponents, then competition should be your goal. This approach can completely change your understanding of the word "defeat".

By itself, the term "defeat" says that you participated in the struggle and did not win. It happens. And then it all depends on how you assess the situation. Situations don't matter, they just happen. And here you may not care. It all depends on what attitude you choose to have with her.

Choice 1. You chose to make the outcome of your struggle super-meaningful. That is, you allowed only one option - victory and nothing more. And when it turned out that reality did not coincide with your super-significant expectation, you gave the strongest emotional reaction.

Emotional reactions are of two types.

If your subconscious mind believes that you can influence the situation and change it, then it gives you a boost of energy. You go into a state of excitement (irritation, anger), and go to fight "for the truth." Or, much worse, you do not go anywhere, but sit still and unsuccessfully try to extinguish the energy of struggle excited in your body. As a result, you “drive” this energy into an emotional block, which will then torment you for many years, reminding you of your defeat.

If your subconscious comes to the conclusion that “the train has left” and nothing can be changed (for example, the desired position is occupied), then it takes energy from you, and you fall into a semi-depressive state, feeling hopelessness and meaninglessness of life.

This is a very unpleasant state that everyone experienced in their personal lives, when, for example, a loved one suddenly broke off relations with you. The same states also take place at work, when something that you mentally already considered “your own” is suddenly destroyed, and life without which seems empty and meaningless to you.

If you do not use special techniques, then you will get out of this energetically “failed” state for a couple of years.

What can be changed here?

Option 2: Make a different initial choice.

If you are going to achieve some goal, you can initially take the position “life is a game”, and then you, as an athlete, are mentally prepared for any outcome of the game. If you lose, it is, of course, unpleasant. But this is not a reason to plunge into depression for years and into the state of an “eternally offended” bilious person, who was once undeservedly bypassed in his expectations. Imagine that football players or hockey players would go into depression after each loss. What would our sport be like? And he is not like that. Lose today, win tomorrow. And that's it, there is no reason to worry. There are reasons to work on improving your skills.

This is the mindset that you need to take as a basis on the way to your goal.

But let's say you didn't know about "Option 2" and have already experienced what you would rate as "defeat". Although this is just an implementation of one of the options event development. And you rated it as a "defeat". What can be done to quickly get rid of the consequences of a strong emotional reaction?

If you gave a reaction according to the “male” type: “goats, I’ll kill everyone”, and now this irritation again and again brings back your thoughts about losing and thoughts about what needed to be done are spinning in your head in an endless series, then the way out is obvious.

You need to remove from your body that emotional block that now controls your behavior and again and again plunges you into an internal struggle. It's just an emotional charge that you can quickly get rid of.

You can go to two or three sessions of active breathing (holotropic, rebirthing), and he will leave.

You can go to a psychologist, and he will take energy from your experience with long conversations. Or you can work with the "Self-auditing" technique, that is, to retell your experience to yourself in all the smallest details. Fifty times in front of a mirror - and everything will pass.

You can work with the technique of forgiveness. On the site "Self-transformation Assistant" on the page "Step 1" you can see detailed instructions on how to write the "Extended Forgiveness Formula". Then you can write down your formula there and work with it there using the “Effective Forgiveness” technique, which connects the repetition of forgiveness phrases with active breathing. In the end, you will take energy from your experience, and it will remain just an insignificant memory of an event that once took place. You can start moving towards new goals.

Another option is when, according to the results of evaluating the results of the struggle, you went into a semi-depressive state. This is the "feminine" way of responding.

Why does the subconscious take energy from us when an event occurs with which we categorically disagree, but cannot change it? It protects us from doing wrong things that could threaten your life (“beloved is gone - I will commit suicide” - popular entertainment at a young age).

In order for your energy to return to you, and you start moving towards new goals again, you need to convince the body that the event that has taken place is “up to the lantern” for you. That you no longer view it as a tragedy, but look at it as just an ordinary failure, of which there are many.

Here, too, it doesn't hurt to work with the forgiveness technique first, but the focus should be on replacing your current "if I don't take this position, my life will end" belief with something more positive. For example, to the belief “I easily and calmly perceive any result of my efforts to occupy a position (here you need to indicate which position in question)". And then this new belief needs to be loaded into oneself so that it displaces the one already there.

You have all heard about working with affirmations - the technique of repeatedly repeating the positive statement you need. Or its repeated rewriting. This is a weak technique that takes too much time, and does not give the desired result when not enough effort is applied.

I suggest using the "Effective Self-Programming" technique - it includes mentally pronouncing the settings you need in active breathing mode.

The technique is implemented on the website "Self-transformation Assistant" on the page "Step 2". On this page, you first write down the settings you want to get rid of. Then, according to certain rules, write down the opposite positive attitudes. And then, in active breathing mode, load them into yourself.

This technology works and gives fairly fast results. For example, you can get rid of the strongest anxiety about the destruction of some of your expectations, for example, breaking up a relationship in just a month or two of work for half an hour a day.

You can read more about this technology on the website “Self-Transformation Assistant” under the “Read” button in the book “Start Life Again. Four steps to new reality».

So there are tools for quickly erasing your usual reactions to situations that you evaluate as defeats. You just need to use them. Usually this does not happen, since people perform most of their actions under the influence of habitual behavior patterns, without thinking about it. And these models, in turn, do not imply that you can quickly get out of experiences. On the contrary, there is an algorithm of long emotional reactions, which we stupidly work out.

But that is another topic.

We decided to start a new column, within the framework of which, once a week, the psychologist-consultant Konstantin Karakutsa will answer questions that concern us. The first issue is devoted to a problem from the field of male psychology - how to survive the loss of your favorite team. The season in most championships has already begun or is about to begin, so we believe our material will be very useful.

How to survive the defeat of your favorite football team?

The answer is simple. Get drunk with friends beer. Go look for the fans of the other team to fill their faces. Return "on the horns" home and make a scandal there for your loved one? Wake up in the morning, go to work or study, and there all day long and tell everyone about what kind of failure you experienced yesterday and how angry you are at the whole world. A familiar picture? Now, jokes aside, let's try to think about this topic more seriously.

Why is it so hard to deal with defeat? Well, to a greater extent it has to do with the process of identification, namely, with the identification of oneself with the group. When a person deeply sympathizes with some football team, he can seem to dissolve in what is happening to his pets. There is no more Vasya from the fifth floor, who studies economics and plays the guitar. All this is unimportant. Now attention is occupied by what is happening on the field. And a goal scored in "our" gate is perceived as a personal defeat. This goal was not scored hundreds and thousands of kilometers away. No. This goal is scored right here in my kitchen, against my goal. And I'm ready to bite my elbows from annoyance that I missed this ball.

This identification with your favorite team can be enhanced when you are in the stadium or watching a football broadcast in a sports bar with a large number of other fans. In this case, special group processes begin, which are very difficult to resist. Waves of feelings and emotions can overwhelm you. That is why people gather in places like this. But it's one thing when the team won and this whole crowd is infected with feelings of stormy fun and euphoria. Another thing is when there are losses. Here's how it goes. Either everyone will complain to each other and seek solace from a neighbor, looking for the perpetrators of the defeat, or, in a fit of collective violence, they will begin to throw out annoyance at the first person who comes to hand.

This goal was not scored hundreds and thousands of kilometers away.
No. This goal is scored right here in my kitchen, against my goal.
And I'm ready to bite my elbows from annoyance that I missed this ball.

A little about aggression. Violence is often the result of powerlessness. When a person is faced with something that he cannot influence, or when he feels cornered, a beast can wake up in him, which is ready to tear and throw, destroying everything in its path. So, back to the topic of losing. If the team we love loses, there is nothing we can do about it, and in connection with this, a feeling of powerlessness may appear in the soul. It is all the more acute, the more you have merged together with the team you support. There are two ways to help yourself get through this defeat.

First, you can try to bring yourself back from heaven to earth. You need to remember who you are, why and why. For example, it could look like this: “Yes, they lost, but my life does not end there. Actually, I have a lot of other things in life, there is a study (work) where I can succeed and feel satisfied. I have a loved one (and if not, then there is an opportunity and desire to meet him). I have many other tasks in life that are now in front of me (buy a car, an apartment, go on a trip, etc.). All this requires strength from me, and by solving these problems, I can feel like a winner in my life. The idea here is simple - help yourself get back into your own life without getting stuck in virtual world with which you are not directly connected.

And the second option is to find this connection with the world of the game, the world of football. What is meant? For example, the team lost, and you feel annoyed, do not know where to put yourself, your strength and energy. Here it is useful to ask yourself a couple simple questions: how can I personally help my team now, what can I do for it?

The answers to these questions may vary. It all depends on your abilities and creative imagination. For example, you could support and develop a fan club where you live; could organize some events or promotions on the Internet that would somehow help your team; or, for example, they would give ten good and expensive balls to the football club located near you (in order to support Russian football and its development in the future). There may be many options. When you direct your energy into a specific action and strive to do something so that your team wins in the future, this can bring you satisfaction, giving you the feeling that you, albeit not so much, but still influence the result. Agree, this is better than doing nothing, but only getting angry or suffering from defeat.