This week I’ve been home in Cayman. Seeing my boys, clients, friends. There are so many wonderful elements of living on that small island of only around 60,000 people, and at the same time, there is an element of “big fish, small pond” mindset, particularly when it comes to sports. Big fish in a small pond. Top in Cayman is often too low a bar to achieve much beyond that, and can, in fact, act as a limiter. It can mean failure on the big stage internationally.
I can understand that happening, but what I do struggle with is people who don’t try. They aren’t ready to fail in order to succeed, so they don’t truly try. That way they have a built-in reason for their being defeated.
Let’s explore that further and look at why that happens and what can be done if one wishes to truly achieve their personal best.
Using the Cayman example, it is relatively (compared to larger countries) easy to represent the country at youth sports level internationally.
However, when youth athletes do represent Cayman, instead of themselves and those around them looking at this as an early stepping stone to achieving their personal best,. I’ve observed again and again how they are congratulated by their parents, family, friends for the achievement level of simply representing their country. This often then creates in the athlete the sense that they have already “made it”.
That athlete then goes to compete internationally and, largely, lose. They are beaten by athletes from larger countries.
So, the title today is “To achieve, be ready to fail”, so what is my point if they go off and are beaten having set a low bar. Is that not failure?
Well, there is the low-level failure of the sort where you didn’t even really and truly try. You didn’t train to your best, you and those around you set you up psychologically with “do your best against the big countries, we are proud of you whatever happens”.
All of that is not failure, it is “settling”.
Settling for the average, the mediocre, playing small, doing “ok”. It is being afraid of what it takes to truly achieve to the highest of your potential.
Now, I freely admit an inherent bias towards wishing for everyone to achieve to their highest and full potential. I also totally recognise that this is not for everyone.
So, if such a hunger for achieving is not part of your make up, then honestly I’m kind of wondering why you have read this or any other of my posts, and that is ok, happy to have you.
If, however, you have the humility to recognise in yourself that there are times when you have under-achieved when you could have done more, then today a few thoughts to support you.
First, the image above if of Marina Abramovic. I’ve written about her many times on this site, so simply search this page for her name and please do read various posts. For now, I’ll encapsulate Marina as hungry and brave. She is powerfully and purposefully driven to go beyond what others would call limits in order to achieve to and beyond what she believes possible.
Second, six weeks ago I wrote: “Elite Lessons – Making failure possible“. I opened that post with the words:
In order to make failure possible, you first have to try, to commit, to go where it may scare or even terrify you, to be vulnerable, to say “this might not work” and do it anyway.
Very recently I was disappointed to witness this first hand in someone. They were presented with a real opportunity, yet my sense is that it felt too scary to them to try, so instead, they creating a rationale for them to choose to back away and shut down. Rather than risk failure, they chose not to commit, to make the effort, to try.
I then went on to talk about the example of the swimmer Cate Campbell, one of the all-time greats, who failed on the world stage in a spectacular way at the Rio Olympics in 2016. In my article, this quote from her:
In life, instead of falling, we fear failing.
I let the fear of failure destroy the possibility of success.
Yet I missed the crucial point that only in a place where failure is possible, is success possible.
Beautifully put. Cate Campbell learned from Rio all new levels of Humility, of being Open, and so recaptured her Hunger and she was indeed Brave enough to make success possible, and she has since done so, back better than ever.
I highlight those words, of Hungry, Humble, Brave, Open in the example of Campbell and Abramovic. I talk more of those on the #BeMoreYou page of this site.
These are four key characteristics of people who choose to work with me as clients. It is not a surprise to you, then, for me to highlight that these are also four areas for me personally that matter deeply and that, for me, is always a work in progress.
So, for you, for me, for all of us, I repeat the mantra:
To achieve, be ready to fail