No More Participation Medals, Please
When you reward mediocre, average, lackluster, or just showing up, that's what you get more of.
Merit.
The quality of being particularly good or worthy, especially so as to deserve praise or reward; excellence; something that deserves or justifies a reward or commendation; a commendable quality or act.
It's recognizing those exceptional individuals who did the work, put in the repetitions, got up early, stayed up late, studied hard, honed a particular skill or quality, and pushed themselves beyond what even they believed they were capable of, to become the best of the best.
Merit is about recognizing those who go above and beyond, who stand out in the crowd as world-class, exceptional, or in that particular moment bested everyone else who was there.
But everything changed between 1965 and 1980.
Generation X, the children of the Baby Boomers, were born. This generation, also known as the Latchkey Kids, was essentially a forgotten generation. Divorce had become accepted, normalized, and the family unit began to unravel. Many of these Gen Xers, raised by single parents, came home to an empty house and were forced early on to fend for themselves. And where two family homes remained, both parents were working to pay for their extravagant lifestyle, leaving the kids to essentially fend for themselves.
Gen Xers grew up early, as they were forced to. They felt like the middle child in the family, overlooked, ignored, and not quite sure where to fit in. Many didn't get to participate in after-school activities like band or athletics, where friendly competition could be fostered, and learning how to humbly win and gracefully lose is taught. And their parents were so consumed with their own lives, and their own success, they forgot to teach their own children how to live an excellent life.
So Gen Xers became cynical and self-sufficient, but always searching for their own identity as they grew up in the shadow of the Boomer generation before them.
And then they began to have children of their own. They brought their own insecurities and cynical life experience into these relationships and wanted to make sure their own children got the recognition they didn't, going overboard in the process. Just for showing up, even if they were unprepared, the children of Gen X (Millennials) were going to be recognized and rewarded.
Enter the participation medal.
I saw this start to creep into martial arts competions in the late 1990s. It started with the kid's competitions. Twenty or thirty children would show up for competition and everyone got a medal, just for showing up. First, second, and third place received a trophy, sometimes. But everyone was declared a winner, everyone got a medal, just for showing up.
And then, it progressed. Getting a participation medal wasn't good enough. Children were broken up into groups of four, even in the same division, and everyone was again declared a winner. No participation medals anymore. Now everyone received a first, second, third, or fourth place trophy.
The emphasis shifted from the pursuit of excellence, being the best you could be that given day, to making sure everyone was declared a winner, even if they couldn't finish a form or lost their fight.
From there, it progressed even further, expanding into pre-teen, teen, and even adult competition. Everyone who showed up was a winner and everyone went home with a trophy. School owners stopped demanding excellence of their students. The quality of teaching declined, as did the quality of competition.
As excellence was no longer rewarded, average became the acceptable norm. Everyone left believing they were a winner when in fact, they really weren't. It continually reinforced that simply showing up, going through the motions, without really being tested as acceptable.
When you're not testing yourself against the best of the best, willing to win or lose based on your performance in the moment, you've lowered the standards for the sake of making everyone feel happy and inclusive.
You're not rewarding excellence.
What gets rewarded gets repeated.
Today, we see this in our educational system, as Gen Xers and their Millennial children are now running the show. It's no longer about educational excellence, being the best of the best. It's about making excuses, lowering the standards, or doing away with the standards altogether so everyone can be a winner.
We see it in our military, our government, our universities, and even in our corporations. Today we have a generation who doesn't want to work, but expects to be paid anyway. A generation who won't put forth the effort, are unwilling to learn a new skill set, expects to be coddled, to be graded on a curve, and believe they are entitled to live life without putting forth any real effort or contribute to society in a genuine and meaningful way.
And it's destroying our competitive advantage in the world.
The martial arts industry recognized this trend and started to turn its focus back to the pursuit of Black Belt Excellence, with incredible results. The quality of instruction is continually improving, as teachers are not only focused on teaching excellence in performance, but also in school owners seeing the value of also teaching and encouraging excellence in character, values, and life skills.
They're giving their students a competitive advantage by not allowing them to settle for mediocre or average. They're also teaching students everyone has equal opportunity, but not equal outcomes. They're learning a Black Belt is earned through diligence, hard work, and dedication - not by simply paying the money, showing up for class, doing little or nothing, and not really learning.
School owners are teaching their students there will be times when you win, and at other times you will lose. Be humble in winning, and gracious in losing, and learn the lessons both are trying to teach you.
Martial arts instructors are teaching their students (and the parents of these students) a very powerful, life-changing lesson.
When everone's a winner, no one wins!
When you lower the standards so everyone is equal, you're not challenging anyone to stretch themselves, become a better version of themselves, and strive for excellence. You're simply becoming a belt factory rather than rewarding the students who actually do the work, put in the time, strive to become the best version of themselves they can be, and keep striving to become better.
Competition and the rewarding of excellence can be seen throughout recorded human history. Even evolutionary theory teaches survival of the fittest. When we seek to take that away with a human construct of equity that wants to make everyone equal (when they aren't and never will be), it negatively impacts society as a whole, making us weaker, dumber, less prepared, and more vulnerable.
When you are willing to reward mediocrity, average, and lackluster, you're teaching others this is the acceptable norm. You're robbing a generation of the opportunity to excel, to learn, discover, and grow - stretching beyond the boundaries of what they deemed was possible to discover, develop, and deploy the true Black Belt Excellence that resides within each of us.
In life, there are winners and losers. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don't. But Black Belt Leaders are lifetime learners, committed to the endless pursuit of Black Belt Excellence in how they live their lives. They don't lower the standard, they continually raise the bar for themselves, striving to become better today than they were yesterday, and repeating that process day after day.
We don't need any more participation medals. We don't need to keep rewarding people for simply showing up and doing what is expected. Merit demands we only recognize and reward those who do more than is expected, who go above and beyond, who excel at their chosen art, profession, or trade.
Excellence is hard work. It requires sacrifice, commitment, dedication, and a tenacity to keep going, even when the going gets tough. When I was competing in martial arts, I trained for hours each day, honing my skills so when I stepped into the ring, I was ready to take on any challenger.
Each competition, each competitor presented a learning opportunity. With each bout, I gained experience. I learned what worked and what didn't. Win or lose, I walked away knowing what I needed to work on before the next competition so I could improve, go farther, and win more bouts.
It's also important to remind ourselves and our children that just because we're gifted in our area it doesn't necessarily mean we are gifted at anything and everything. So, let's focus on what we do best, becoming a Black Belt Master at that, as this is where we will experience our greatest reward and greatest satisfaction in life.
For some, it's sports. For others, it's art, music, academics, or something entirely different. That's OK. It's part of the diversity of who we are as a species. Everyone is gifted and talented in their own way. Let's encourage ourselves and others to develop that giftedness, hone it to a razor's edge, and become the very best version of ourselves we can become.
Let's also teach ourselves and others to appreciate and recognize those gifted individuals who are ahead of us, who that day were the best of the best. These individuals can inspire us, encourage us, challenge us, and motivate us to strive to become better at who we are and what we do.
And let's stop rewarding people for doing what is expected. When we return to recognizing and rewarding excellence, raising the standard and challenging ourselves and others to stretch, learn, and grow, the quality of what we do increases as a result - and more importantly, the quality of who we are.
If your view of yourself is so small that you believe you need a participation medal simply for showing up, then you need to take a fresh look at yourself, see the Black Belt potential within you, and develop that to its full potential.
What gets rewarded gets repeated. So let's reward excellence. Let's teach it, demand it of ourselves and others, and stop settling for average, lackluster, or mediocre.
Winning a participation medal doesn't make you a winner in the game of life.
Choose instead to strive for Black Belt Excellence, becoming a better version of who you are and what you do every single day of your life.
Discover, develop, and deploy your own Black Belt Leader within, and become a Black Belt MASTER of your chosen, art, craft, profession, or trade.
You don't need a participation medal to do that.