Fear of Failure

Failure is a swimmer's worst enemy—the fear of not succeeding or accomplishing your goals can be crushing to a swimmer's confidence. I myself have fallen victim to fear of failure. What we must remember is that failure is not a person; it is a moment in time. You are not a failure; you have only failed. We all fear failure, however, we must remember that there can be no progress without failure. You must fail, you must learn from your mistakes in order to better your stroke and your mindset. Someone who has never failed is someone who has never tried in life. You must push the idea of failure out of your mind. Behind the block, you must only think of success. 99% of the time, your race has already been swam before it even starts. If you go into a race believing it is going to be a failure, you might as well walk away and forget about it. At meets, events do not always go as planned, you may have been disqualified, or you may have added instead of dropped. Even if you have failed, you cannot give up! Some can never bounce back into their old mindset once they have failed, but I want to scream on the top of my lungs: Get up! A wise man once told me, you have a lane you have a chance. Never forget that. Do not waste a perfect opportunity when it is right in front of you. Failures hurt. The higher you jump, the harder you fall. However, the higher you jump, the more gratifying the result. Small goals get small results. The bigger the goal, the larger the result. Remember that.