playing to win and not to not lose

The third period of the Gold Medal hockey game was excruciating to watch. Canada got up by two goals by midway in the game and then seemed to change their strategy. In the first part of the game they took the game to their opponents and this resulted in the two goals. Then, as the weight of national pride and the whiff of victory began to waft through the arena, they began to protect the lead. This is of course human nature. The US got one goal and we all got more anxious. The last five minutes of the game consisted of the increasingly desperate American throwing wave upon wave of attacks at the Canadians who were getting increasingly desperate to knock the puck back out of their end. I saw it coming, as many people did, and with less than a minute to go the US tied the game. It seemed inevitable. It was only a matter of time and based on results they had the time to wear down the Canadians.

In the fourth period the defensive strategy of "trying not to lose" was done because there was no longer a lead to protect. The Canadians were forced back into "trying to win" and returned to taking their game to their opponents. With the strongest offense of Canada against the strongest defense of the US, a 4 on 4 was bound to come up in Canada's favour. It was just a matter of time.

"Playing not to lose" is much different than "playing to win" because it focuses attention on we don't want, which is bound to then happen. The two phrases seem semantically equivalent but they are not: one brings fear to the mind (losing) and the other brings the goal to mind (winning). One brings about panic and the other a conscious competence. It's the latter than is the winning approach.