Have you ever met anyone who has never experienced failure? If you have, he was probably a spoilt little boy who has been sheltered from life’s knocks. He’ll probably need propping up all through his life.
When my son didn’t make it into the first eight in his high school rowing team, my wife was devastated, she was so sad for him. It was his goal since he started rowing. Mothers feel the pain of the offspring as though it was their own pain.
I was happy for him. Of course his mother thought that was terrible. I was happy for him because he had not fully committed to the goal. He thought he had, but I could see gaps in his committment all over the place. He was always in contention for the top eight. He was so close, he has the talent, but others wanted it more.
The reason I was happy for him missing out on his goal, was. If he had of got into the top team without doing everything in his power to make it, he would have walked away thinking, you can get to the top in life without “giving everything”.
After much soul searching, he now realises, he could have made it. After all the dust has settled, it is only a high school rowing team. If he walks away from the experience having learnt a valuable lesson, he’s won. High school is for learning, winning is good, but learning is better.
My approach of welcoming failure in an athletes development, is not always popular. But in the end I’m not doing this for popularity. I am as driven for coaching success as any of my athletes are for winning.
Some of the best performances I’ve assisted athletes to, have come in the next big race after a shocker.
If you were disappointed with your last race, how you handle that disappointment will shape your life from here on. The toughest competitors will derive a greater level of motivation, a stronger drive to “get it right” next time. Mental toughness is not just about “out suffering” the opposition. True mental toughness is more about how you handle things that don’t go right.
Welcome failure. Failure is a report card. It just tells you where you are right now. If you’re not happy with the report card, do something about it. By changing the way we view failure, we can change the future.
The best friend failure has is “truth”. Examining the reasons for failure ”truthfully” can be the secret to improvement. Don’t “piss in your own pocket” when examining why the failure to perform actually happened.
If your reasons for failing to reach your goal are things like, “lack of talent”, “not tall enough”, “bad luck” etc. you’re kidding yourself. I’m sure an athlete with your talent level, your height, could make “better luck” happen on the day by training/preparing better, wanting it more and fighting harder to get it.
When I stood on the stage at the presentations at Busselton West Australia in 2006, I was in 3rd place. The Swiss/German guy who came first shook hands and said “So, I caught you Heh?”, in a perfect Colonel Klink accent. He had beaten me fair and square. I had stuffed up a good race, I was fit, trained well, experienced. I had already done 30 IM races. I had run 20 IM marathons 20min faster.
To this day, that voice motivates me. “So, I caught you Heh?” I am doing something about it.
2 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.
Nice one AP, I have always learnt the most from failures. Its funny our society is averse to failure, and subsequently people avoid it all costs. This often leads to them never reaching their true potential.
Keep up the great work!!!
There is no such thing as failure, only results. Failure is just a result you did not want. If the results are not what you wanted to receive then you need to change what you put in.