Coping with Failure
Not only am I a psychotherapist, but I am also a figure skating coach. When I coach beginner skaters, the first thing I teach them is how to fall down. Why? Because falling on our butts when skating is inevitable. Mistakes will happen and tripping over our toe picks happens too. But it’s not always about how many times we fall but what we learn from the falls and how we stand back up.
Have you ever failed at something? How did you handle it at the time? Did you criticize yourself when you made the mistake? Did you obsess over your mistake? If so, SAME. As an athlete in a very aesthetic sport where everything is expected to be perfect, I did not handle any mistakes well. As a figure skater any little mistake I made, I was self-critical, blamed myself, would ruminate, and obsess over mistakes. I would also get angry, and even punish myself by digging my fingernails into my thighs or doing push-ups for every jump that I popped (I got really good at doing push-ups). Back then I thought being tough on myself would decrease the mistakes or would improve my skating. Well, it didn’t. Often athletes report emotional distress following failure which often looks like self-blame, self-criticism, rumination, and obsession (Mosewich et al., 2013; Ferguson et al., 2014). And many athletes think this response is necessary to succeed in sports (Sutherland et al., 2014; Rodriguez & Ebbeck, 2015). However, that’s not the case, actually, these responses to failure can be counterproductive. Responding to failure in ways of self-punishment and self-criticism is highly associated with avoidance, fear of failure, and emotional reactivity (Sagar et al., 2007; Powers et al., 2009).
I remember a time that I had failed so hard it felt like the end of the world to me. I was competing at a sectionals competition and if I skated a clean program then I would place at least fourth which will get me one step closer to Nationals… well, I bombed. I came last in the competition, and I’ve never been so upset and disappointed in myself. It was probably the most embarrassing thing I had ever done, and I’ve sung some pretty embarrassing karaoke songs before, but this failure was devastating. After that, I was so scared of failing that I developed a fear of failure without knowing it. I was at a point where this not only affected my skating ability but also my life outside of the rink. I didn’t want to try anything new because I wasn’t sure if I could do it perfectly on the first try, so instead of being vulnerable and trying I just didn’t do it at all. In skating, I would circle and circle and circle for hours on double flips… I had been doing double flips for years but even with an empty ice rink, I couldn’t get myself to do it.
If I haven’t convinced you already that self-criticism and self-punishment aren’t productive or even good for your general well-being, then I have a more “sciency” explanation for you.
Our body has a way of handling perceived stress or threats and this is through our sympathetic nervous system (flight and fight response) and our parasympathetic nervous system (the rest and digest) (Thayer & Sternberg, 2006; Porges, 2007; Thayer et al., 2012). The activity of these two systems is dependent on how we perceive our environment and if we consider it to be safe or not (Thayer & Lane, 2000; Porges, 2007). We can measure our parasympathetic nervous system by looking at our Heart Rate Variability (HRV). HRV is the variation of the heart’s beat-to-beat intervals (Porges, 2007). When we are stressed the parasympathetic nervous system kicks in by increasing our heart rate and decreasing HRV, while the sympathetic nervous system locks it in (Porges, 2007; Thayer & Lane, 2009; Thayer et al., 2012). Low HRV is often associated with emotional dysregulation, negativity bias, and an increased likelihood of disease (Thayer & Sternberg, 2006; Porges, 2007; Thayer & Lane, 2009). If low HRV persists and our body’s stress response is sustained for too long then this may negatively impact our physical health, mental health, and even performance. Undermining performance might look like inhibited decision-making, response time, coordination, and automatic skill execution (Davis & Sime, 2005; Bertollo et al., 2013; Tenenbaum et al., 2013). Ruminative thinking, self-criticism, and obsession can all keep our body in stress response and our HRV low.
In summary, thus far, our well-being and performance is impacted by how we handle failure. Especially if that response includes self-criticism, self-punishment, rumination, and obsession. Well, I know that you are probably thinking now, how else am I supposed to respond to failure? Good question! There are a couple of ways that you may want to consider to help you when responding to failure:
Common humanity: meaning that rather than isolating ourselves, recognize that failure is a shared and common human experience, and we need to learn how to accept and even share our experiences (Neff, 2003a).
Self Compassion: speaking to yourself kindly rather than with harsh criticisms. By providing yourself with emotional safety you are better able to see your mistakes in a non-threatening and balanced way without avoiding difficult emotions (Neff et al., 2005; Allen & Leary, 2010).
Mindfulness: helps with an open and balanced view of emotions without over-identifying them.
Embrace your emotions: allow yourself to feel the way that you are feeling. Identify and understand the emotions you’re experiencing. It is more helpful to think about the emotions rather than thinking about the failure itself (Nelson et al., 2017).
Recognize the unhealthy ways in which you try to minimize or avoid pain. Sometimes what we think are good ways to cope end up causing more harm in the long run such as using food, alcohol, or drugs to void your pain.
Growth Mindset: How might feedback help feed me forward? Adopting a growth mindset to frame mistakes as part of the process to success. Seeing mistakes as an opportunity to grow.
Cognitive restructuring: what do you think about failure? What have you learned about it? What does it mean if you fail? What does it say about you as a person? Do you have any irrational beliefs? Do you think that if you fail people won't like you or that you won't succeed in life? How might we reframe failure or look at it differently? What can you learn from failure? What opportunities can it bring?
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References
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Davis, P. A., & Sime, W. E. (2005). Toward a psychophysiology of performance: Sport psychology principles dealing with anxiety. International Journal of Stress Management, 12(4), 363–378. https://doi.org/10.1037/1072-5245.12.4.363
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