How about making peace with our failures?

What do the champions have to say?

To succeed, you have to know how to fail. At the risk of stagnating or even regressing.

Doubt it? Then read these words from Michael Jordan:

“I’ve missed 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 matches. 26 times I was trusted to take the winning shot and I missed. I’ve failed again and again in my life. And that’s why I succeeded.”

This quote is one of my favorites, and I share it without moderation during my consultations!

In mental preparation, the question of failure is central.

What happens when you refuse to fail?

Wanting to succeed at all costs and fighting against failures leads to under-performance, unpleasant emotions and a loss of pleasure.

This is illustrated by the story of Sara, a 17-year-old footballer.

During our first teleconsultation, Sara tells me about her career as a footballer: it’s clear that she loves the sport, which has gradually become a real passion. In fact, she hopes one day to become a professional.

A talented player from the start, she has always found it hard to accept her failures. Over the last few months, this difficulty has become more acute, to the point where she leaves every training session feeling frustrated.

She broods for hours on end about all the things she’s failed to do, and locks herself into a negative discourse in which she tells herself that she’s rubbish, that this is not the way to stand out and evolve.

This undermines her morale, all the more so because even on the pitch, her intolerance of failure is growing: at the slightest failure, she’s invaded by negative thoughts and tenses up.

Her level of play deteriorates, accentuating the negative internal dialogue and unpleasant emotions. Sara then enters a vicious circle that causes her to lose confidence.

We start by working on post-workout ruminations, as these are what bother Sara the most.

How can we reduce our ruminations?

I suggest she keeps a logbook to fill in at home after each workout. She notes:

• Evaluation of her training in terms of satisfaction (score between 0 and 10). When I ask her how satisfied she would have been with the last three training sessions, she answers: 2, 5 and 4.
• The three things that gave him the most satisfaction, whether tactically, technically, physically or mentally.
• The point she’s most dissatisfied with and would like to see changed as a priority, and at least one improvement solution to try out at the next training session.

Sara is so intolerant of failure that I think it’s essential tointroduce a point of improvement right from the start. Putting the failures completely aside would generate too much frustration for her.

We discuss Michael Jordan’s quote, allowing him to question his representation of failure.

Finally, I invite her to set herself a time limit for completing the notebook, of between 5 and 15 minutes maximum, and suggest that when she has finished, she should move on to another activity.

The idea is not for her to put new pressure on herself, but to observe with curiosity how she experiences things by experimenting with this way of proceeding.

How can our failures become a source of progress?

At the second appointment, Sara tells me the following:

• Its satisfaction scores are between 5 and 7, which is already a clear improvement.
• She feels that the logbook helps her realize that there are always positive elements, and that it’s she who tends to set the bar too high for herself.
• She really enjoys looking for solutions to the point that has caused her the most problems: it enables her to project herself into a possible future success, and to regain confidence in her ability to improve, which boosts her motivation.

We take the time to solidify things, and Sara continues her log for the next 15 days. This allows her to evolve further, and her satisfaction scores are now between 6.5 and 8.

She tells me that she feels like she’s regained control, and that the negative and useless ruminations have almost disappeared.

She has also identified precisely the points she needs to work on to progress on the pitch: taking the time to analyze the situation before making her choices, and waiting for the ball rather than rushing.

What tools can we use to manage our frustrations in action?

She would now like to improve her ability to move on more quickly to the next action when she misses something during training. She has noticed that she often stays in anegative self-talk mode, telling herself that she shouldn’t have missed, that it’s not acceptable, …

Together we develop a strategy to test when it fails:

• Either she manages to find a solution right away , and puts it in place.
• Or she can’t find a solution. In this case, she applies a routine to move on:
  • Inhaling deeply, she raises her shoulders towards her ears to tension the trapezius muscles and move in the direction of her anger. She pauses for 3 seconds, maintaining the tension and concentrating on the sensations in her muscles. Then she blows hard, relaxes her shoulders and tells herself at the same time: “It’s okay, I’ll let it go”.
  • She then clenches her fist and reconnects to images of a very good memory of success to regain the feeling of confidence.

We go through the exercises together, and then Sara imagines herself able to use them in training.

I then advise him to :

• Do her routine daily for 10 days so that she can automate the exercises.
• Repeat the visualization before each workout, like a mental warm-up.

What difference does it make to tame your failures?

A month later, she has clearly evolved and her level of play has improved. She finally feels she can express herself on the pitch. Her coach has given her positive feedback and increased her playing time in matches.

She is proof that failure is constructive when it is accepted and analyzed as a useful experience for progress.

I hope this article will help you change the way you look at your failures and reconcile yourself with them, so that your practice becomes even more exciting!