For the majority of my life, I’ve played to win. Whether that be in sports, my academic, or professional life, I’ve primarily focused on getting the best outcomes. This mindset and approach has generally served me well, and on paper, what I’ve been able to achieve so far would be considered fairly successful by many standards. I’ve been able to experience what it’s like to work at some of the best tech companies, while also making an attempt at making the Canadian Olympic wrestling team and winning some matches along the way. All in all, it’s been a pretty good run so far, but something I’ve realized is that my drive to win is actually fueled by a deep fear of losing.

In 2017, I took some time off work to fulfill a dream of mine—to try to make the Canadian Olympic wrestling team. Wrestling was something I competed in my whole life, and in order to avoid regrets later on, I knew I needed to give it my full attention to have any chance of achieving my goal. Early on, when I started regularly competing again, there were many tournaments where it almost felt like I’d forgotten how to wrestle because my body would tighten up and my response time had become significantly compromised. The way I wrestled in practice—where I felt unbeatable and was able to spar hard against all of my training partners—was completely different from how I competed. It was almost as if I were two different athletes, and it was extremely frustrating knowing I wasn’t competing at my best, but more importantly, that I felt like I had no control over it. I knew that to give myself the best shot at reaching my goals, I first had to figure out why this was happening to me.

I went to work, read many sports psychology books, and listened to various podcasts on the subject. I learned that what I was going through was something many high-performance athletes and individuals felt as well. There were various reasons one might feel this way, but what ended up resonating with me the most was how putting too much weight on the outcome can actually make you scared of losing, and your body can have a physical response to that fear. This response to fear is something that we, as humans, developed as a means of survival. When we are faced with a threat, our bodies go into a “fight,” “flight,” or “freeze” response to protect ourselves. Reading this, I immediately knew that what I felt when I competed—that feeling of my body tightening up and feeling as if I didn’t know how to wrestle—was me “freezing.” But why did I associate the result of a competition as a threat? My life wasn’t in danger, so why did this fear exist in me in the first place?

To be honest, even though it was completely my decision to quit my job at Microsoft so I could focus on wrestling, it was definitely unorthodox. Subconsciously, I think I needed to justify this step away from the norm, and the only way I knew how to do that was by producing good results. I needed to win competitions to say that all of this was worth it. But when I think about why I decided to use the results to justify my decision—instead of recognizing that having the courage to try already made it worth it—a large part of it has to do with how I perceived winning and losing growing up.

My dad competed in the Olympics for wrestling, and being a high-level athlete himself, he had high expectations for me when I competed in sports. His response to me losing was sometimes one of disappointment, which made me want to win more, driven by a fear of letting him down. Even though I won a fair amount, my fear ultimately got in the way of me being able to win more consistently—and sometimes when it mattered most. Fortunately, when my dad became the head coach of his own wrestling club, he saw other parents act the same way he did with me, and it made him realize that it did more harm than good. When he coached me during my adult wrestling career, his response to my losses changed. I no longer felt his disappointment. Instead, he focused on helping me identify what I needed to work on to improve. The reality is that this is a shared experience among many of my friends who are children of immigrant parents. Whether in academics or sports, their parents often prioritize getting the best results above all else. Unfortunately, a side effect of this style of parenting can sometimes be the fear I experienced.

In the latter half of my competitive career, I found ways to shift my focus away from the outcome. Any time I felt the fear of losing rise in my body past a point that was beneficial to me, I reminded myself to focus on what I could control—my performance—because the results were largely out of my control. It became clear to me that whenever I was focused on the outcome and let the fear of losing get to me, I didn’t perform well. But when I just focused on wrestling and executing good technique, I was satisfied with myself regardless of the result. The reality was that as I started bridging the gap between the fearless wrestler I was in practice and the one who would “freeze” in competition, my results ended up getting better. I was able to string together enough good performances to win my first international competition and was satisfied with my top-8 finish at the Canadian Olympic trials, knowing that I wrestled the best I could at that time.

Learning to lose started with my athletic career, but it’s something I still practice to this day because I want my conscious self to control my outcomes—not my subconscious self. For example, I recently rediscovered my passion for tennis, a sport I stopped playing when I was younger because of my fear of losing. This time around, I’m giving myself permission to lose to make mistakes while perfecting my technique. If I just focused on winning and not wanting to lose, I actually wouldn’t be able to improve my technique because I would be too afraid to hit the ball the way I know I should at the expense of losing a point. Now, I’ve been able to hit the ball better than ever, even though I’ve played far less tennis recently than I did when I was younger, all because of this shift in focus.

Outside of sports, the fear of losing could have prevented me from taking my current job at an early-stage startup, where nothing is guaranteed and the reality is that a lot more startups fail than succeed. However, I’ve focused on the responsibilities I’ve been given, which have allowed me to push myself and evolve the way I think and operate—things I would never have achieved working at a larger company.

When I think about where I am today—a new parent—I am naturally inclined to set my son up to be the best he can be, in whatever it may be. But I now know that to have any shot of becoming the best version of himself, I need to first teach him that it’s okay to lose and not fear it. Because only after this lesson will he be willing to take the risks necessary to grow. Just like I can now be proud of the times I pushed past my fear to be the best I can be, I hope he will be proud of his journey too.