Bouncing Back:
Learning from sport comebacks to overcome failure
My name is Jasmin Taylor, I’m from Ipswich (Suffolk) and sponsored by enable.services for the winter season where I’ll compete in the FIS Telemark World Cup for Great Britain.
Failure isn’t a lot of fun, but it does teach you a thing or two and it does show you what you’re made of. I have two trains of thought in relation to different types of ‘failure’.
The first one is where you worry about how you will look or what others will think of you. You may compare yourself to others and decide in your own mind where you should be compared to where you are. This is not pleasant but, in my experience, you get over it quite quickly (unless you dwell on it, but I will circle back around to this point). Well, you do at least, when you have failed as many times as I have! However, the fear of looking silly etc. can lead to my second point which is where the failure feeling really kicks in…
Then the second one, and this one really sucks, is the one where you know you didn’t really do your best and you sold yourself short or let yourself down in some way. In skiing terms, it means skiing to not lose rather than skiing to win and it leaves you with a lull, a dull empty feeling which can be difficult to shift. I find the best way to shift it is to identify what is making you scared and shy away from turning up for yourself. Then once you have established what is really bothering you, face it in the best way you can. It tends to bother me until I have dealt with it, although that can be both a helpful and very unhelpful personality trait (again, I will come back to this, bear with me).
When these lulls hit, I ask myself – Do I want to be someone who avoids failure again, who doesn’t try in case and plays it safe? Or do I want to know that I did my very best even if I come up short?
That first point I made about dwelling on embarrassment or what others think, here you must remember that this is your own voice, in your own head, saying these things to you. The negative things we say to ourselves we would never say to someone else, so why do we believe them? Another important point to mention here, is how subjective failure is, it really doesn’t mean the same thing for everyone and as well, maybe worth noting that rarely is something ever a total failure, even if it feels like that at the time. Failure is an important part of being human, and without it we wouldn’t learn and grow as people.
Speaking about how we relate to failure, have you heard of self-compassion? There is some evidence to show, low levels of self-compassion (rather than self-esteem) can lead to burnout. Self-compassion is divided into three categories: self-kindness vs. self-criticism, common humanity vs. isolation and mindfulness vs. time travelling. The point I made earlier about having to deal with something because if I don’t it’ll bother me, this is a perfectionistic must get everything done type trait and I know a few people who also struggle with that.
This type of perfectionism isn’t the healthiest approach and sometimes just cutting yourself some slack and being kind to yourself can give you energy. In the very same way, relating to others and seeing your problems or failures as something many people go through is also very powerful. We are not alone! Now compare that approach to not sharing your worries and isolating yourself, they can often grow bigger.
Then finally, living in the moment, the better we are at doing that, the better quality of life you have overall. I practice breathing techniques but sometimes taking the dog for a walk, a nice call with a friend or listening to music can be enough!
We all have failures and setbacks; life doesn’t always go according to plan. Once you “succeed” (whatever that means), if you can’t deal with failure, you’ll only be afraid to “not succeed” again. My questions again: Do you want to be someone who avoids failure again, who doesn’t try in case and plays it safe? Or do you want to know that you did your very best even if you come up short? In my opinion, doing your best no matter what is the most inspirational!
