I’ve already written a first article on this subject, which you can read here.

I recently prepared a group intervention in mental preparation for the Pôle France de Taekwondo. The aim of this group session is to help participants develop a constructive relationship with their failures, by helping them to play them down, understand the emotional reactions they provoke, and identify concrete mental strategies for bouncing back.

It was as I was putting the finishing touches to this speech that I thought of La Sportive Outdoor, saying to myself that you too might enjoy the exercises I’ve designed for taekwondoists.

So I’m offering you an article designed as a mental coaching session, to be read with a sheet of paper and a pen at your side, to try out the tools as you go along.

How do you see failure?

To get started, you can write down the first five words (or images) that come to mind when you hear the word “failure”. There’s no right or wrong answer. Write down what you think of spontaneously, without thinking too hard.

Are you done? Then you can now try to analyze your answers, to understand what they tell you about the way you REPRESENT failure.

For example: do your words have positive or negative connotations? Do they relate to emotions? Thoughts? Behaviors? Specific situations?

From what you’ve written, have fun building YOUR own definition of failure: put it down in black and white and keep it handy.

How do champions see their failures?

I now invite you to discover the representations of failure by several champions in different sports:

“If I can’t get a movement right, I just accept that I haven’t found the right sequence yet… rather than giving up. I try 20 or 30 different ways… until I find what works.” Lynn Hill (climbing)

“You can reach the top… but the real top is coming back down. The absolute priority is to come back safe and sound.” Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner (mountaineering)

“An unfinished job can be a wonderful springboard for what’s to come.” Courtney Dauwalter (ultra-trail)

“I truly believe that a champion is not defined by his victories but by his ability to get back up when he falls.” Serena Williams (tennis)

If you had to choose just one of these quotes, which would you prefer? Why or why not? Take the time to write it down. Then write down how this quote might help you in your future training and/or competition.

For my part, I really like these quotes because they highlight that :

• Failure is NORMAL. Everyone fails, even the best.
• These champions have not eliminated failure from their careers (that’s impossible). They have integrated it. They don’t judge themselves by what they fail at, but by how they use it. So failure is USEFUL for progress.
• To miss is not to fail. To fail would be to stop trying. And I’d like to add that giving up can sometimes be liberating 😊

Analyzing failures

To go a step further, I suggest you think of a recent situation that you experienced as a failure (in training or in competition). Try to answer the following questions in writing:

• What happened? What did you experience as a failure?
• How did it feel?
• What did you think?
• How did you react?
• What were the consequences of all this (emotions, thoughts, behaviours) in terms of pleasure AND performance?

Develop your own solutions

Here are a few things that should help you manage things better next time.

First of all, shame, anger and frustration are the most common emotional reactions to failure. But we can’t control our emotions, so you can free yourself from the guilt you feel when you fail. On the other hand, you can improve your ability to welcome and accept these emotions, and then channel them. Here’s another question: what can help you do this?

In terms of our thoughts when we fail, we find that we’re very often in evaluation, in self-judgment. We tend to tell ourselves, for example, that “it’s not normal”, that we’re “too bad”. In short, we sometimes go so far as to identify with the result of what we’re doing. But if we take a closer look: do these thoughts help us? Not at all! On the contrary: sometimes they aggravate unpleasant emotions even further, creating a vicious circle. So what can help you when you have these thoughts?

Finally, if we look at how we behave in the event of failure, we see that discouragement, flight and demotivation take the cake. If you go back to the failure you analyzed, what could have been a constructive behavior?

Now that you’ve put all your analyses and ideas for solutions down on paper, I suggest you set yourself ONE personal goal for improvement over the next two weeks. You can, of course, write it down in large letters and add to it the indicators that show you’ve made progress (e.g. more stable emotions, more positive thoughts, more perseverance…).

If you’d like to share some of your answers or the progress you’ve made thanks to this little coaching session, don’t hesitate to write to us at laurene@lasportiveoutdoor!