Embracing failure
Take home message
WE MISS 100% OF THE SHOTS WE DON’T TAKE.
For Coaches
It is important to create the environment where it is safe to fail. It’s on that edge where the growth occurs. We encourage it in our athletes - do we do it?
For Athletes
You need confidence and trust to try and fail. That is truely where the learning occurs.
Easier said than done. Rarely do people enjoy failing. Whether the failure is public or private, there can be an element of pain associated with failure. I am not sure where that comes from, because we did not always view failure as a bad thing. I recently heard that an infant learning to walk can fall up to 30 times an hour. That is an impressive failure rate. Can you imagine failing at anything at that rate as an adult? I hate one failure a week. But in avoiding failing, I am also avoiding learning.
I am not suggesting recklessness here. I am one of the most boring, conservative, failure-avoiding people you are likely to meet. I break out in cold sweats at the thought of getting something wrong. I proof read these articles several times before hitting publish. It takes me a day to post on LinkedIn. Here I am trying to genuinely share and help others and I’m scared of posting a blog with typo! Embracing failure is a process I am going to have to develop if I am to improve.
But as a coach, it is such a contradictory behaviour. I often have to expose athletes to new tasks - jumping, landing, agility - something that is going to add to their repertoire of athleticism. And the reality is, if it is a new skill, the odds are they are going to get it wrong the first time. That is why we practice. As a coach, a skill I need is the ability to create a positive environment for the athlete to feel safe to fail. That whilst they might be comfortable ‘crawling’ forever, there is a clear advantage progressing the skill and failure is a part of the learning process.
That’s where trust, education, resilience and role models are important for embracing failure. Anything worth doing is worth doing wrong to start with (take this blog as an example). Sometimes we need to go backwards slightly to go forwards. Learning a new movement technique requires altered motor control which means momentarily poor execution whilst we learn new pathways.
Coaches need to find the balance in progressing the task just right. Not enough progression and it is boring and the athlete is not engaged. Too hard, absent of trust or a role model, and we perhaps stifle second attempts. A lot of coaching is creating the balancing environment between engaging challenge or embarrassing failure.
As a coach, my progress also depends on finding my limit by making mistakes. I feel fortunate that my environment (coaches and fellow athletes) is also supportive of me extending my comfort zone. It is only then that I can grow, to help our athletes and clients even more.
“I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” Michael Jordan.
Even the best have failed. That’s reassuring. Failure is not fatal. Keep going.
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Thanks again. BA.