How do you handle setbacks? Each of you look at your individual set backs in a different light and handle it in your own way. The questions I have for each of you are; do you allow the setbacks define you? How long do you let the setback fester before you bounce back? If there was a flaw in your technique do you focus on correcting it? Are you determined to bounce back
Below are some stories that point out how swimmers at all levels have setbacks and how they deal with it.
Heyo,
Gonna drop three quick stories on ya and then ask you what they all have in common.
Here we go:
1. At the US Olympic Trials in 1988, during the final of the 200-meter individual medley, Summer Sanders was leading the pack at the 150-metter turn.
She was 50-meters away from going to the Olympics.
Sanders would end up placing third.
Later, she reflected:
"When I did lose, I understood it happened for a reason. Defeat meant I hadn't had enough experience going into the race. It never meant I was destined to fail again, that I had fallen into some impossible rut. Quite the contrary: I was in control. Failure just showed me what, exactly, I had to work on—my stroke, my dive, my turns. If I did the work, I had nothing to fear."
2. It's less than a year from the Beijing Olympics, and Michael Phelps is walking out of a Buffalo Wings restaurant in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
He slips on the ice and breaks his wrist trying to brace the fall. For a short while, Phelps is mortified. His chance at Olympic history feels like it has been ripped away.
After some discussion with his coach, Bob Bowman, Phelps realizes that he needs to double-down on his preparation.
"In a weird way, the broken wrist gave me an urgency that in the long run turned out to be a positive."
3. How often does Olympic champion, world record holder, and freestyle legend Katie Ledecky "fail"?
According to her former coach at NCAP, Bruce Gemmell, one of the greatest swimmers in history "fails" at practice…
All. The. Time.
"There are days she fails catastrophically," he said. "She fails in practice more than anybody in her [training] group, because she'll start out like, 'This is the pace I need to swim in the race, so I need to replicate it in practice.' And she'll go six repeats like that, and the tank goes empty and she just falls off. But you know what? She'll come back the next day and try it again. And on the third day, she'll nail it. And she's been doing this since the first day I walked on the deck with her."
Okay.
What do these three quotes have in common?
They are textbook examples of an outlook that understands that failures are part of the process.
Failures don't cripple them, or crush their identity, and they don't look externally for others to blame.
They own and learn from their failures.
Instead of viewing failures and setbacks as "proof" that they will never be successful, failures are used as a blueprint and motivational fuel for next-level improvement.
Not learning from our setbacks is a problem.
Got it.
But it is worse than that.
Because we have a dysfunctional relationship with failure and adversity, we end up actively avoiding it in the first place.
Which means we end up doing stuff like:
- Giving 75-80% of our best during hard workouts, because if we don't give our full and unvarnished best, then we have an excuse to fall back on
- Choosing the easier sets, intervals, and lanes because you need to nurse your confidence
- Believing that progress and improvement should be without difficulty or effort
Use setbacks as nuclear fuel for improvement
When you start taking this "learning from your setbacks" mentality to the pool, opportunities for improvement start popping up all over the place.
(Which is wildly motivating.)
- Choke on race day? Time to work on a pre-race routine and a mental prep strategy for success behind the blocks.
- Give up on the main set? Time to use better self-talk to keep pushing when things get touch.
- Not improving at practice? Time to stop bolstering your self-esteem by swimming with slower swimmers and challenging the faster swimmers on your team.
- Struggling to recover between practices? Time to get serious on better sleep habits and meal prepping healthy meals.
Instead of seeing reasons for why you won't be successful in the future, you are busy trying to improve.
Your setbacks and failures are trying to tell you something.
They are trying to show you a path forward.
Take some time today to sit down with your moments of adversity…
And learn how you will be better because of them.
With you on the journey,
Olivier
PS: So much of your swimming is dictated by your mindset.
When I ask swimmers how much of their swimming is mental, it's almost always up in the 90-95% range.
And yet, how much time do you spend actively working on it?
Some? A little? Not at all?
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