How Young Athletes Can Deal With Failure

No athlete is perfect. Not every game is won. Not every season is successful. As the high school fall sports seasons start to come to an end, it can be hard on athletes, especially if your seasons didn’t go as you wanted. However, failure isn’t permanent, and every athlete, especially young athletes, needs to understand that. 

At Warren Academy, we offer a variety of sports performance training programs designed to help athletes excel on the field. We understand that at some points in an athlete’s career, they will fail. However, these failures can turn into extraordinary achievements if dealt with properly. Below, we go over some ways all athletes can better deal with failure. 

Understand that every athlete will fail

Once you lose a game, or your season comes to an end, the first thing to think about is that you’re not alone. Every team will lose. Every player will make mistakes. Whether that be a missed tackle or a dropped ball, just know that you’re not alone. Even professional athletes make mistakes. It’s important that you understand that mistakes and failures happen to everyone. 

Don’t dwell on mistakes for too long

When we fail, we tend to think about it longer than we should. The first step in overcoming failure is having a short memory. A good rule of thumb is to think about what happened for 30 minutes after your game, and then only reflect back when working to become better. Constantly thinking about what could’ve gone better will only have negative effects on an athlete’s mentality. Stay focused on your goals, stay focused on your season and come back working harder than ever.

Reflect on your performance

Once you let the anger and emotions go after a game, it’s time to reflect on how you can grow from your failure. When reflecting on what happened, be honest with yourself. Hold yourself accountable for the mistakes you made, and then come up with ways to improve and limit these errors in the future. Look at the things that you did well, and focus on how you accomplished those successes. These simple tips will help you grow as an athlete, improve your mindset and ultimately help you learn from your mistakes.

Don’t lose confidence

A bad game or season can hinder an athlete’s confidence. However, confidence is needed in order to bounce back better than ever. Instead of having failure break down your confidence, take it as a way to become mentally stronger than ever. When athletes are more confident in themselves, the chance of mistakes happening goes down! Always believe in yourself!

Never be afraid to fail

Lastly, you have to tell yourself that you’re not afraid of failure. It’s important that even after a bad game, you keep pushing yourself harder, you keep taking risks and you continue having faith in yourself and your teammates. When an athlete starts to become afraid of failing, the chances of failure only increase. Never play timid. Never play scared. Stay confident in yourself and always remember what you are capable of doing!

Although all sports careers ultimately come to an end at some point, do not let failure stop you from achieving success in everything you do! Keep these tips in mind whenever you encounter failure, whether that be on the field, in the classroom or in life in general!

At Warren Academy, our goal is to help every athlete reach their full potential! Visit our website to learn more about our sports performance training programs!