Why Failure Is Important

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

By Andy Ross, Swimming World College Intern

If you clicked on this article, you probably did so because you thought the title was absurd. ‘Why would failure be important? Failure is never something you want to prepare yourself for!’

Well, concerned reader, I want to tell you why failure is important.

Goals are a very important part of swimming. Without goals, we have nothing to shoot for, and there is no purpose. The best part about any given championship meet is seeing the look on a swimmer’s face when they achieve the goal they had set out for since the season began. The display of pure joy on the faces of swimmers is what coaches, parents and teammates strive to see. But, with every ecstatic swimmer, there is at least one, maybe two disappointed swimmers.

A lot of tears are shed on the pool deck at championship meets. Swimmers may miss their time goal, they may get 17th or they might have lost a team title that they spent the whole season dreaming of.

Photo Courtesy: Annie Grevers

When I was a junior in high school, my ultimate goals were to win an individual title at high school sectionals, get the school record in the 200 medley relay and to win the team sectional title for the first time in 11 years. I became so obsessed with those goals, that I spent almost every minute of every day thinking about what I was going to do when I got them. I would dream about the celebrations, the fist pumps and the time over and over in my head. I even had a countdown in my daily calendar that started about 100 days out.

When I got to that fateful February day, I was nervous. I was so nervous, I was freaking out. I was shaking. I had spent the entire season thinking about this one day and nothing else. I was ready to achieve my goals but I was nervous that they weren’t going to happen. And I didn’t know what I was going to do if I came up empty.

100-breaststroke-walkout-2015-usa-swimming-juniors-005

Photo Courtesy: Donna Nelson

The first event was the 200 medley relay. I swam the breaststroke leg and had the fastest split of my life. Yes, we won the relay, but we missed the school record by three tenths of a second. Oh well! I was glad we won, but I knew we had another chance to break it at state that next week.

The team battle was back and forth the whole meet. We were up, we were down. I knew I was going to have to be ready because I was in the last two events– the 100 breast and the 400 free relay. I was the only one from our team in the A-final of the 100 breast, while our rival school had two.

This was the race I dreamed about winning all year. I dove in and saw the guy next to me bolt out in front. I wouldn’t say I was shocked, because I knew he would be out fast. But I was shocked I couldn’t catch him. I remember the last 25 almost giving up. I swam my best time, but I didn’t win. In fact I was third! I couldn’t believe it. And to top it all off, we were down six points going into the last relay.

Our rival school had stacked the 400 free relay while my team stacked the 200s. I was anchoring the 400 and knew we needed about a two to three second lead if we were going to win. I dove in a second behind. I was devastated. Although I tried as hard as I could over those 100 yards, I was almost in disbelief it was happening.

‘This was supposed to be the year! This was the year where I would get that record, get my first individual title and help the team win a championship,’ I was thinking to myself. But it wasn’t. I sat and cried for a long time after that race was over.

Photo Courtesy: Hayley Good

But then I remembered I was going to have one more crack at that 200 medley relay record. It was my only swim of the meet and it was also my 17th birthday. We were in the very first heat of the very first event. We were going to get the record and just screw around the rest of the weekend. It was going to be the best weekend of my life.

Our backstroker got us out first. I dove in ahead, but I couldn’t get my arm speed up. I went into the turn with the longest glide I have ever done in my life. All my momentum was lost. I tried to spin but I knew it wasn’t working. I went six tenths slower than my split at sectionals. My teammates all swam faster, but we missed the record…again. This time it was by 11 hundredths.

I couldn’t believe it. I stormed off, knowing it was my fault we didn’t get the record.

After that meet, it took me a long time to fall in love with swimming again. I was so upset because I didn’t achieve my goals after I spent so much time thinking about how I would celebrate them. After that devastating season, I changed my approach to swimming. I stopped thinking about time, didn’t count down the days and stopped worrying about what other swimmers were doing around me. I worried too much about what our rival school was doing and what my competitors were doing in-season that I didn’t focus on myself, and what I needed to do. And if we were going to win a team title that year, I needed to get my job done, instead of worrying about what everyone else was doing.

Long story short, I had the best season to date during my senior year. I won my first individual title and went to state in two events. Yeah, we didn’t get the school record in the medley relay (we missed it by a second) and we didn’t win the team title. But I used the failure in the relay to fuel me for the individual races. And I realized that winning a team title doesn’t define a successful season. We were just as happy to finish second as we were if we would have won.

2016.03.26 NCAA Mens Swimming Championships_Reagan_California Team 1

Photo Courtesy: Reagan Lunn/Georgia Tech Athletics

A couple of years back, I remember watching Tom Shields do an interview after his senior season at Cal at NCAAs. Cal finished second to Michigan after Cal won the previous two. When asked why Cal stayed and applauded Michigan as they celebrated he said, “We win with class and we get second with class. We’re not mad that they won…Michigan gave us their best and these three days, they were better than we were. We have to applaud that, we came to race against the best. They were on fire, so why be mad?”

I’ve really taken this quote to heart, because I’ve always watched strong teams finish second at NCAAs and be happy. When I was younger, I was always wondering why they were happy. They probably had a team goal to win, and they didn’t achieve it. So why were they not all pissed off? Well, just because you miss a goal, doesn’t mean that season was a failure.

I had pretty much spent my entire junior season focused on that one day. I didn’t enjoy the process and didn’t spend any time thinking what would happen if I didn’t achieve any of my three goals. I was heartbroken when I didn’t achieve any of them.

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

So what I am saying is this: enjoy the process, don’t stress over your goals. Write down a goal time, and don’t put much thought into it after that (except when necessary, of course). Thinking too much can consume you and make you more stressed than you need to be. Don’t worry about your competitors because you can’t control what they are doing.

Another quote that Shields had in that interview was “experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.” Don’t treat a ‘failure’ like it is the end of the world. Everything happens for a reason so don’t beat yourself up when something doesn’t go your way.

Shields Interview

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Lisa Cameron

8 years ago

As i like to say, its about the process. The product is icing on the cake

Paul Hamor

8 years ago

Michelle Adkins Hamor show this to Sophia.