Teaching My Girls the Art of Losing

The purpose of my newsletter, Parenting Prose, is to help parents feel more supported and less alone. None of us are pros, but all of us can benefit from each other's experiences. This is mine.

Eleven days ago, we lost our second attempt in 4 months to pass a local referendum to build a new K-5 school in our district.

As gut-wrenching as the loss is, I'm focusing on the lessons I can teach my girls from this incredibly unique and rewarding experience. Here's what I've been talking about with them lately:

🌟This feels upsetting, sad, and hard because *it is* upsetting, sad, and hard

In our home, all feelings and emotions are welcome. I've cried on and off in front of my girls several times in the last week and a half, and it's important to me that they witness my feelings take over. I process my emotions in real-time, and explain to my girls that losing is really hard, especially when it's something Mommy and Daddy have poured their hearts and souls into for the last 9-months, but feeling sad and heartbroken about it is *the right way to feel*. Which brings me to the next lesson:

🌟 Knowing you did everything you could have done softens the blow

We are going to lose in life way more often than we are going to win. I've learned throughout this process that how hard you work towards a different outcome is directly correlated to how painful the loss will feel. If you did everything you could and left it all out on the field, the loss still stings but is far more bearable than it would be if you had regrets about your effort and commitment.

James Clear recently wrote about this exact experience in his brilliant 3-2-1 newsletter. In it, he writes:

"Although losing is never fun, there is a certain satisfaction that can be found on the other side of losing - but only when you give your all. To lose with half effort offers no pleasure in the moment and no peace in the long run. But if your ambitions were full and your attempt was genuine, after the sting of losing wears off you'll be left with something resembling contentment. The reward is not always in winning, but in striving."

I love this perspective and I'm choosing to focus on how hard we strived and how much we've grown throughout this experience, which leads me to the next lesson:

🌟Shift your focus to what you have gained

We lost the referendum, and there won't be a brand new K-5 school opening in the fall of 2027. But we gained *so* much throughout this process: Friendships that likely wouldn't have formed otherwise. Skills that we may not have learned for a long time, like leading without authority, public speaking, community organizing, planning and hosting a rally, partnering with local businesses, etc. We found deep purpose and meaning in this work, and we're walking away from this experience having grown exponentially as individuals and as a team. It takes intentionality to practice gratitude and ignore the negativity bias that so easily creeps in when we lose, but it's made losing more palatable.

Last but not least:

🌟Remember you have agency and the power to choose what comes next

I want to teach my girls that they have the power to choose how they respond to the losses in their lives. As the stoic philosopher Epictetus reminds us, "It is not what happens to you, but how you react to it, that matters." We can't control what happens, but we can control how we process what happens and determine our path forward.

We can choose to wallow in our sadness and pontificate on how we could have implemented a different strategy or tried one more attempt at knocking on our neighbors doors, or we can choose to be grateful for the many lessons and gifts this experience gave us and begin planning what comes next for our family.

Life is hard. We will lose more than we will win. I want my girls to learn that *how* they lose matters and reveals far more about their character than how they win. I view losses as opportunities to learn, grow, and practice owning my agency to choose how I respond and plan for what comes next.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to all the friends, colleagues, and connections that have proactively reached out over the last several weeks to check in and offer support. You mean the world to me and my family and I'm grateful to have this community to experience life's ups and downs with.