Hello, and welcome back to Brain in the Game. Brain in the Game is a podcast that's been specifically designed for athletes, coaches, and parents who are out there looking to do their sport just that little bit smarter. Brain in the Game is our weekly mental gym session, and I'm your mental PT and host, Dave Diggle.
In this episode 52, we're going to look at the cost of failure. Yes, it's an all-important elephant in the room. The times where things just don't go the way we want them to go and we feel that we have failed. In elite sport, it's just somewhere that we end up at some point at some time. Now, statistics show us that more athletes will fail than they will succeed. In fact, every athlete is going to fail on some level at some point. We need to be able to be very conscious about how we look at failure, how we manage failure, and how we avert some of the consequences of feeling like failure. Failure is just as much as an important part of our competitive life as an athlete, as is competition, as is training, as is learning new skills and being able to perform.
It's just one of those different parts of our life that we need to look at in a way that we can manage. However, unfortunately, there's a huge stigma that comes with failure. If you look at the elite athletes of the world today, the reality is when they fail. They don't only fail inside their own world, it's a global failure. It could be being broadcast to millions, even billions of people if it's an Olympics or it's a World Football or Soccer Championships. So if we do something that everybody around the globe will see, then that failure is not only our failure, it's a global failure. If we look at David Beckham and that infamous penalty shot where the ball went flying over the goal rather than in the goal, that was an epic fail. We knew that he could do the skill. He had done it a squillion and seven times before. But not only did he fail at that specific time, he did it on such a global scale. There was lots of reports after that said that he struggled with that failure for a very long time. Failure can mean so many different things.
It can be a missing a skill, not being able to put a ball in the back of a net at the key time. It could be missing a tackle, missing Missing an element within a routine. It could be missing a start of a race, not getting the best off the block start that you could possibly do. That same failure could scale up to not winning a championship not being selected to represent your country, not making it to the Olympics when that's been your goal all your life. That gives us our self doubts and has a huge part to play in our self-worth, causing us to have real issues about our own self-esteem. There's social pain that comes with that, too. Our standing in our society, again, when we think about David Beckham, when he missed that goal for England and he was the England captain, and that would have shifted how people saw not only him and his captaincy, but also the English team. There was a huge social pressure and a social consequence to that failure. People People won't see you the same when you fail. We know that. Inherently, because we are such a social creature, pack animal, when the rest of our herd don't see us in the same light, it changes the dynamics of how we fit within that herd.
So there's a huge consequence, and there's a huge social and evolutionary consequence to why it's so important that why we look and seem to be effective, efficient, and reliable. So our success Services can prove our worth to be part of the pack, to be part of the team, and even maybe hold a prestigious place within that pack, maybe being the alpha or being the team captain. But we also look for reasons why it would fail, too. If we don't perform where we want and we fail, well, that can also be a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we have doubts about our performance or our ability and we go out and we fail at something, then that self-fulfilling prophecy It proves our point. You see, I told you I couldn't do it. You see, you shouldn't have put me in that position. We look for justification. Failure can be just as relevant to our understanding of who we are and our social grouping as our successes. We hinge our value on what we do and not who we are. When we want to go out and improve our social standing, we improve our worth within the herd, We go and we kill a wilder beast.
We're going to do something to make us look bigger, better, and more viral than the next person, making us look more selectable. If we take that all the way back down to our primal behaviour, That's purely and simply, so we'll be the ones that are selected to carry on the gene pool? When we look at the competitive world, what we're trying to do is be the best out there, to shine brighter than everybody else, to be seen as bigger by brighter and better than anybody else has been before or is going to be again. Our social standing has a massive impact on the consequences of failure, mentally and emotionally for us. However, if we think about what failure is in real context, it's not often as bad as we make it out to be. Our emotional weight or our emotional value we place on something tends to over-exaggerate that failure. If we look at David Beckham again and he kicked, that failure was only escalated because of how important it was and the importance that he placed on it. To be honest with you, we did as a nation, too. The value of indicates the importance and the weight that we apply to that failure.
If it was on a training pitch in in his hometown with some guys, he was just kicking a ball around and he missed, the likelihood is that he would laugh about it. That group of guys would probably have a bit of a giggle and then get on and practise some more. However, the value that they placed on that skill at that time meant it became a national issue. So David Beckham had missed goals before. We'd all seen him miss goals before, but nobody talks about those goals as frequently as that one. It has a massive impact on our self-esteem and our values of ourself, how we hold ourself, and that hinges how we think about our own self-worth within our group. For me, when somebody comes to me when something hasn't worked for them and they've experienced one of these epic failures, I first of all ask them to put it in perspective because that, for me, is what failure is. It's just a shift in perspective. How do we look at this differently? What can we gain from this rather than what have we lost from this? If we look at it from a perspective where we balance out the gains and the losses, that will shift the way that we not only perceive the failure, but how we deal with the failure.
I know Olympians who have gone and competed for their country at the top level, and just because they've not won, perceived themselves as a failure. Now, let me ask you, If they make it to an Olympics, are they a failure? Depends on the perspective, doesn't it? Depends on where they saw their rightful place to be within that competitive environment. If they saw themselves at a place where they should have won, then they will see themselves as a failure. If they saw it from the vast majority of people's perspective, they made it to the top percentile in their sport, then we would see that as a success. It's all about perspective. How you choose to see something indicates how much of a success or a failure it is. That proves to us that it's not a tangible thing, it's an emotional thing. So failed compared to what? So we want to ID the real objective view of this. What is that objective and subjective view of that competition, that skill, that event? Is it really a failure or a success? When we put it into that perspective, we can shift how the impact impacts us. People often see a failure as the end rather than the beginning.
Again, this is a shift in how we see the event. Was that the end of my career or was that the beginning of how I do things differently? Was Was that the end of me ever being selected or was that what I need to reinvent myself, make myself more marketable to the team environment? It's about perspective. We also want to see longevity It's not about the now. Anybody who's been to some of my live trainings will know I get somebody up on the stage and I ask them to look at their feet. And whilst they're focusing on their feet, I just tap them and they'll fall over. Then ask them to stand up and not look at their feet, but look into the distance, and I tap them the same again. Often, they just wobble a little bit and gain stability. What's changed? Perspective. They have a better perspective on their environment so they can gauge their balance and what forces need to go against the force I'm applying. When they're looking at their feet, they're only focusing on the now. When I push them, they've got no perspective of when they're tipping until it's too late.
It's about, don't look at your feet, but look further forward. We can do that by ensuring that if an athlete is going for a specific competition, by asking, what's after that? We gain that longer term perspective. Okay, so we're going for Olympics, and then Olympics, and then what? What comes after that? If all of our focus is on that one thing and there's nothing after it, that's a very daunting place to be. So people have massive emotional connexions, not only to their successes, not only to their social standing within the herd, but also to their failures. We know that people gauge their value in society and to themselves on what they've achieved and what they haven't achieved. We all do that. And by doing that, what we're doing is setting ourselves up to feel like rubbish when things don't perfectly. So we don't want these failures to define who we are. The same way we don't want just our successes to define who we are, because we'll be very one-dimensional then. We want to have a broad-based perspective on who we are. And that includes our successes, our failures, our things that we're trying, things that we're striving for, and our dreams and aspirations.
How can we do this a little bit smarter? How can we do this different rather than being this volatile to, if I'm successful, I'm great. If I fail, that's it. My self-esteem, my self-worth is buried in the ground. There's a couple of key things that we can do, and we started off by talking about the perspective shift. If we have a different, more detailed perspective on everything that we do and frequently, then we're going to have a broader collection of data. The same thing as when I asked you not to look at your feet. When you pick your eyes up, you've got more areas to gauge on how upright am I? Am I being tipped forward? Am I being tipped backwards? When you have that amount of data, you can have a more clear and concise gauge of where you are. If you understand the perspective you have on everything and you look at that perspective from a non-emotional, like a disassociated perspective, frequently, then you gain more data, you gain more objectivity. Those calibration process, as we've talked about before, things such as our journaling, that's our analytical look at how we're performing day in, day out.
That gives us a vast amount of data. Our 3D coach, so we look at what our perspective is, what somebody else's perspective is, and the big picture. So could David Beckham have done it differently? Absolutely. Could he learn from it? I'm sure he did. And in reality, it was a missed goal. What's the long term consequence of that in reality? Not what he allowed to happen, but in reality. Then there's a face-to-face debrief process where you sit down with somebody and go, This is what I saw. What did you see? So it gives you an internal and an external perspective. We want to have a robust set of analytical tools that will give us that consistent data, that concise data, so that we can keep it all in perspective. If we've got a big 12 months, 18 months plan, and month three, something happens, in the back of our minds, we know there's nine or so months more to do what we want to do. That takes the pressure off us. It's just a step in the process rather than the step to finish on. We want to have that longer term perspective, that long term view.
It's like when you're coming up to a roundabout, when you're coming off the freeway and you're coming up to this roundabout and you got everyone's at the side. They're those painted angles often go across to indicate that, hey, you're coming towards something. However, it's going to go in another direction. You can go straight over, often you can turn left or you can turn right. You need to know that, okay, I'm coming up this, and there's something beyond that. I can turn left, I can turn right, I can keep going. Having that shift in perspective that it's not the be all and end all, this is the final step, allows us to put it into a clearer perspective. We also want to ensure good balance. When we've got great balance in our life, the one area that's not working tends to be propped up by the others until we can fix it. Again, often when I speak to athletes and I'll say to them, What's going on in your life other than sport? They'll have a blank look on their face because as far as they're concerned, they want to be the best at what they do in their sport.
So there's nothing going on in their world other than their sport. So then when things go wrong in the sport, that's their whole life that's gone wrong in their perspective. We want to have a balanced lifestyle. We want to make sure that their off time is just as valuable to them as their on time. We know neurologically that our off time is our time to recharge so that we can perform smarter. There's a huge amount of value that we aren't always perceiving with our off time. That way, if something goes arrive in the training and we go off and we go, You know what? I've gone home. I thought about it. I've relaxed. I watched TV, sat and talked to Mum and Dad about it, or I went down and played a couple of games of social football with my mates. You know what? I've got this back into perspective here. The same thing can happen vice versa, too. If there's something going on in an athlete's life outside of their sport that's not working, failed relationships, arguments, financial issues, whatever it is, then when they come into their sport, often that gives them their balance, it gives them that purpose.
We want to be able to use it the other way around, too, making sure that there's balance and purpose. The one big thing that we didn't initially What we're going to talk about was the cost. I'm talking financial cost. We've talked the emotional cost, we've talked social cost. But obviously, a failure could indicate a financial cost, whether you make it onto a professional team, so your livelihood, whether it causes the athlete to have to retire. Then you've talked about a massive investment over a long period of time, and not only your financial, but your time, too. How do we manage those consequences to failure? The reality is it's no different. When I speak to an athlete and I say to them, Okay, this hasn't worked, and they go, I think that's it. I need to get out. I've had enough. I always ask them, What did you get out of your sport? And that will stop them dead in their tracks and they'll go, I'm really fit. I would never have been this fit. Or I've seen so much of the world because I've got to travel with my country. Or, I know what? I've made some great friends and whatever.
I've achieved this. I've become regional champion. I've become national champion. Whatever it is, things of value to them. Then I'll turn around and I'll say to them, What would you be prepared to pay to have and 9 times out of 10, I'll say, Oh, you know what? Anything. I'll pay whatever I could possibly pay to have that again. So then if you don't make that professional team, and you may not get paid that professional amount, has it still been worth it? And in the vast majority of people, if they really sat and were really honest with themselves, they'd go, You know what? Yeah, that is. It has been worth it. Maybe I didn't I've reached my full potential, and I could have done things differently. However, that was a great ride. Or they might turn and go, You know what? All that money I've palled into become selected this year. I've not been selected. I'm going to reinvest that time and that money into make sure they cannot not pick me next time. Always look for the real value, not the perceived value, not the emotional value that you would apply to things based on the now, but the bigger picture value.
Was that really worth it? Actually, you know what? It probably was. I remember my sporting career, there was a lot of ups and a lot of downs. As an older person now, when I look back, I look back on it with great affection. I know at the time I struggled in certain areas. I know at the time during injuries that I felt like a failure. I know there was a certain amount of major competitions I went to that I didn't handle the way I know I could have handled. I know at the time I felt a failure. But when I look back now, would I swap my life as a gymnast? Absolutely not. Loved it. It's helped me become who I am today. It's helped me do what I do for other people today. So the return on investment may not have been initially straight there and then, but it's paid dividends long term. That's just perspective. So we can utilise it at the time to drive us forward or we can utilise it later to turn back and go, You know what? That was a pretty good return on investment. It's about perspective. A failure, and I hate that word.
I hate the word failure. However, the other words that we use, a lot of learnings and stuff like that are too wishy-washy for this. Because if you're an athlete and you've not hit the goals you wanted to hit, currently, you feel like a failure. You don't feel like you've got learnings. You feel like that failure. That's just your perspective. And that, I hope, within this podcast, you can now shift, or you can at least put that failure into a perspective. So what have we learned? What have we learned so far? We've learned that the word failure has such a massive impact on who we are, what we see ourselves as being able to achieve, what we have achieved. And in reality, it sets us up for what we think we possibly could achieve in the future. If we feel like we're a consistent failure or we're not good enough to compete with people at that level, then the likelihood of us competing at that level is nonexistent. If we believe that we should be there and that failure was just a setback, then we will learn from that and move forward very, very quickly because we don't want to be somewhere that's uncomfortable.
We want to be where we want to be. So failure, the word failure, and our emotional association to it, has has a massive impact on not only our ability to perform, but our perspective on who we are, our self-esteem and our value, our perceived internal value. We know that we're part of a herd, we're a pack animal. So the importance of success within that pack is massive for us to make sure that we ensure we stay within that pack. We're not isolated from that pack. We don't want to be the weakling at the back that's going to get taken out by the pride of lions. We want to be the one at the front, driving where this herd is going. That's why we're competitive athletes. That's why we do what we do. That's why we are where we are. And that's why you're listening to this podcast right now. Because you don't want to be the weakling at the back. You want to be the one at the front. And so the word failure has a massive consequence for you. And that becomes a choice. Do you choose to become a victim to that failure?
Or do you choose to use that learning from that failure to do something different next time. We've learned that failure has so many different faces, whether it be not doing a skill or a routine to not being able to be selected and then not being able to believe we can do something, where we own that failure so much that it becomes part and parcel of who we are. We don't want to trivialise failures. They're important parts of our growth. Our feelings and our failures, merely put them into perspective, and then what we can do is grow from that. We don't want to trivialise them. We don't want people to say, Oh, well, you know what? It's only that competition. You know what? It's only a skill. We don't really need that skill. We can learn a different skill. No, no. I want to own this. I want to have it in my belt. So when I look down and go, I got that. We know that there's a financial cost to failure. We know that we can either be losing out on a selection for a team that's a professional team and get paid, and all that investment we've put over the years becomes paid back to us, or it could be a financial cost of, you know what?
My career is now over. Because of that heightened emotion, we don't see the true value to the investment we've put into that point. It may not have got us where we wanted to get to, but man, that journey has been greater than if I hadn't have done it. So perspective is the key. We need to identify the real objective view. So failed compared to what? We want to make sure we have a long term view. It's not just looking at our feet now. We got to pick our eyes up and get balance. And We're going to balance what to make sure we got a balanced life. So if something fails in somewhere, you've got such a network around us to ensure that we stay held up until we fix that. If we're a stilt walker on one stilt and we get something to go wrong with that one stilt, we've got nowhere to go. We want to make sure we've got a framework around us. So if we lose that one stilt, we can still continue to stay upright. We want to make sure that we frequently calibrate, both internally and externally. We want, again, when we talk about balance, we want as much feedback around us to ensure that it's not only, I need to tell myself I'm positive, I need to tell myself I'm positive.
I'm fed up with telling myself I'm positive. We want to make sure that, You know what? I feel positive. He's telling me I'm positive as well, and she's telling me I feel positive. You know what? And I feel positive. So we can't all be wrong. In fact, I think we're all right. And we get those through our journaling, our 3D coach, through our face-to-face feedback and debrief models. We want to add that internal and external perspective. We want to have those consistent objectives and consistent goals. Same way when we talk about the rock climber, climbing the rock face, they want to tie off frequently. So if you slip, you don't slip so far. We want to have those robust, and I can't emphasise robust enough, data collection points. So we've got enough consistent, positive data around us to make us feel more valued internally internally and externally. What if you don't do that? What if you don't apply all of those different skills, all of those different perspectives? Well, the reality is our negative emotions will gain momentum. How we see one thing, it tends to be how we see most things. If we don't have that network, we don't have that data collection, we don't have that reality perspective, then what happens is we start to self-doubt.
When we start to self-doubt, we We look for reasons and justification for that self-doubt. We'll find things that are broken, things that we probably would have glossed over or moved past very easily, then become huge catalysis for, You know what? I told you I We didn't do this. We know through what we've studied, we know through neuroscience, we know through practicality that we get what we focus on. If we're constantly seeing enough of this proof that we're not worthy, that we are a failure, then that's exactly what we will become. We won't ever see the positives. We'll only ever see the negatives. That's a disbalance in our approach and our self-worth and self-esteem. That's something we don't want to happen. There should be enough driving that I don't want to go there to go, what do I want to do? Where do I want to be? How do I want to process these inevitable hurdles along the way, these blips in my approach and my career. What do I want to do? What is my perspective? If you stopped now and asked yourself, What is your perspective? What do you currently see? How do you see yourself?
Do you see yourself as really successful with a couple of areas to improve? Or do you see yourself as, You know what? I could have been, but I don't think I've really got it. Too many things are showing me that I'm not good enough. The likelihood is because you're competitive, you're such a driven person, you probably won't see the positives. Look for justification that you are what you are seeing, and that is those failures. I hope you've enjoyed and got a lot of detailed and some really deep indication and processes towards managing failures and seeing failures as what they really are. It's just a shift in perspective. It's something that we're all going to experience. It's something that we will all utilise if we're smart or let us ruin us if we're not.
Until the next episode, episode of Brain in the Game, train smart and enjoy the ride. My name is Dave Diggle, and I'm the mind coach.
