September Blog
First things first: this blog entry is going to be different. Nothing about being on the road. Nothing about funny stories or memorable experiences. But something I thought about a lot lately. Something that many try to dodge (myself included). Some little food for thought. But before I dive into that, let me first tell you what led me to this type of blog entry.
As some of you may know, Leandro just had a knee surgery and is out of competition for the rest of the season. Unfortunately, this means a lot of cool indoor tournaments are off the table, and there’s a lot of rehab work and training sessions to be done. However, this situation has given me time to study, complete some more exams in Zurich and get more involved in the “Beyond Sports” program. The time during Leandro’s injury is without a doubt an opportunity - a chance to reset, rebuild, build stronger. It allows us to work on many different things that a tennis player usually wouldn’t have the time for because of the tournament calendar.
Leandro’s injury has also sparked my current reflection of failure – my food for thought.
Failing.
Let’s look at this thing called “failing”.
In sports, “failing” is inevitable. And it’s no different in life. But what is failing exactly? Who defines what it means to fail? And why do we tend to view it so negatively, even though we learn the greatest lessons from it?
In general, I personally see failing as nothing else than not fulfilling the expectations that we set ourselves for a specific task or goals, or perhaps that someone else set for us. If our tasks or goals, however, are focused on the process itself, there is no such thing as failing but rather learning. Because learning is an inevitable part during any process. Hence, failure becomes less about falling short and more about growth. It shifts our mindset from fearing mistakes to seeing them as opportunities for improvement.
Let’s take tennis as an example. If you consider losing as failing (measuring your success and failure based on results), you will most likely fail every week. Every week. Because no matter how well you play, how many matches you win that week, if you don’t win the tournament, you will walk away as a loser – a “failure”. In fact, there were literally 7 ATP players who ended the 2023 season within the top 30 (!!) in the world, without winning one single title that year. On the women’s side, there were 4 players who finished the year in the top 20 without winning one single title. Now would you consider ending your season amongst the 30 best players as a failed season? Not really, right? Many others within the top 30 lost every week they competed, except for one occasion.
What I’m trying to say is that, if we focus too much about results, you can easily get discouraged. But if we concentrate on progress and personal evolution, we become less attached to the concepts of success and failure—they simply become parts of a larger journey.
The cost of failure is learning.
Now I’m not saying winning isn’t important in professional sports or making results shouldn’t matter. I just believe we should approach failing or losing more as learning - stacking up our bags with lessons and experiences and becoming a little bit better each day.
At least that’s how I see it. What’s your take?