07/02/2024
The FEAR of Failure
I think this is the most common thing I see as a coach. I see parents criticizing their children when they make a mistake, or ask the ridiculous question of “why did you shoot it there”? As if the child ever intended to hit anything other than the gold on every attempt. This cultivates a fear of failure.
Children desperately seek their parents’ approval. You can see the kids most in need of this when they look back at their parents for affirmation after every arrow. Even if the parent isn’t hyper critical by nature, the child still senses a culture of needing to avoid making mistakes.
I see older athletes afraid to try new things or make changes because they have a tournament approaching or are ever so close to earning that next pin, that the thought of having their scores drop while they learn new skills is terrifying. The fear of failure has already been firmly established.
Why is that?
Why do we point out when someone does something wrong so quickly, but we hardly recognize what portions they get right? When a baby attempts to take its first steps and fails, we get excited and encourage it to try again. But as we get older that standard changes. We become more critical and less adverse to taking risks. We certainly forget the encouragement portion of learning new skills.
This isn’t human nature, its human culture, and because it’s culture, we can change it. We can encourage ourselves and others to take risks, we can reinforce that parts that went well and we can reflect on what we need to do to improve. Every failure is an opportunity to learn. We learn what doesn’t work for us or produce the desired outcome. Failure is a requirement to learn difficult things. And discover new skills.
The easiest way to overcome failure is with support and encouragement. When speaking with an athlete, I love to ask questions like: What do you think you have to do to make the next shot better? This gets them to think and start problem solving. If they don’t know ask follow-up questions until they come to an answer that will promote advancement. Then I encourage them to try it.
For me the goal is to get the athlete to improve 1% on just one skill area each day. Over time that 1% adds up and the athlete can see the growth.
With enough time and encouragement we can help athletes overcome the fear of failure and that’s when real growth will occur.
As a parent, ask the athlete what they learned today? How do they think they improved their skills? What do they want to work on the next time they practice? What “step” do they think they are doing the best at mastering? All of these questions get them to think about the process of shooting and less about the outcomes from shooting. A process based thinking promotes growth, an outcome based thought promotes fear.
As an individual athlete. Challenge yourself to try new things, to ask questions when you are unsure. Often athletes know they have a problem area but are waiting to be told what it is by someone else (the coach, parent, peer). The fear of even asking a question is a real thing.
I encourage each of you to challenge your fears and try new things. Talk to your coach on how you can do that as an athlete or a parent.
