In the middle of practice I felt like I needed to give a brief talk, as I think they really needed to hear it.
Failure begins with the thought, and continues to manifest into a verbalization, and then it finally it becomes reality. The likelihood of it becoming real is more when the athlete first verbalizes it. Without the verbalization that they will fail, the less likely they will. Without the thought of failure makes the reality even less so.
So the first step is to stop verbalizing that you are going to fail. This is the easy part of reducing the likelihood of failing. The hard part is getting rid of the thoughts that you are going to fail. This is best done with positive self-talk, a great skill all high level athletes need to learn.
Although I talk about how failing is ok, and it is just a step in the path to success; doesn't mean that you should set your path to failure. Put yourself in the best situation to succeed (by removing the words and the thoughts of failing), and then deal with the results as they happen. If all you do is set yourself up for failure then it will become routine, and then the steps of making yourself better through learning from failure become null and void, as you haven't learned how to mentally be prepared to succeed.
Get rid of the verbalization that you are going to fail. Get rid of the thoughts of failing with positive self-talk. Don't take failure as finality, but an opportunity to make yourself better. Continue to stay positive after a failure is one of the hardest parts to truly succeeding, and you need to practice it.
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