Feeling Like a Failure: Lessons Learned (Author Jeff Davis)

The Truth About Failure

First off, let me say that failure is a misnomer. There is no such thing as failure. There are only results. Either you win or you learn. Everything is relative and subjective, and a “failure” to one person may be a success to another.

With that said, it can be easy in today’s high-pressure society to feel like a failure. I know this first-hand. Despite being a college-recruit athlete recruited to play baseball at seven colleges and universities at Division II and Division III levels, my sports career ended as a benchwarmer.

A Brief Backstory

In my junior year of college, I studied abroad for the whole year and played across Europe with a few Hungarian baseball teams. The level of competition varied, but in some games, I competed against minor league-caliber ballplayers (referring to Minor League Baseball in the United States). To make it to the Minor Leagues requires enormous talent, so I was exposed to some incredibly skilled players. Overall, I performed well and I was looking forward to playing baseball on the Varsity team of McDaniel College back in Maryland, United States my senior year of college.

I came back to Maryland in the fall of 2010 on fire, and I did well in tryouts (including hitting a triple off of an opposing team’s pitcher in a live scrimmage). I made the team but wasn’t a starter. To make a long story short, the coaches had their favorites and for reasons beyond my control, I wasn’t one of them. It sucked because I didn’t always understand the coach’s choices and some of my teammates felt I deserved more playing time. Our team didn’t perform well and we had bad leadership. Have you ever been held back by the shortcomings of those around you?

Although I knew I was a talented player who simply wasn’t given a fair shake, deep down inside I felt like a failure and it was a painful spring of my senior year. It was disappointing to see the team not reach its full potential. I share this to say I know what it’s like to feel like you’re not enough. After getting unexpectedly cut my senior year of high school from the team despite being a college-recruit athlete, I put my hopes and dreams on being a starter in college. When this didn’t happen, a twenty-one-year dream went down the shitter.

This college baseball experience is a long story with lots of nuances and details, perhaps for another post (including some brutal bullying I experienced). I also have some intense stories my teammates and I experienced on my high school football team that shows how coaches can actually ruin a team’s chances for success, though that’s something to potentially discuss in more detail a different day.

The purpose of this post is to share some valuable and important lessons I learned from “failing” at sports that will benefit you as you go after goals in all aspects of sports, business, and life.

Lessons Learned From Disappointment in Sports

What’s powerful about these lessons is that they apply to business and all different parts of your life. Here are five things to keep in mind as you keep moving forward in your life:

• Redefining the “failure”. Failure is only a failure if you see it that way. If you learned something new and/or grew as a person, it’s not a failure. We all sometimes fall short in this game called life – it’s part of the experience. Give yourself credit for putting yourself out there and see how you can apply the lessons learned in future situations.
• The success is in your effort, not the result. This is not some silly motivational statement. You can hold your head high knowing that your success is in making the effort, not the result. Many people never take the risk to go after what they want, so that’s something to be genuinely proud of. Confidence is trust in your own abilities, not in the surety of the outcome. I, along with former coaches and all kinds of teammates who were rooting me on, know that I was one of the best players on the McDaniel College baseball team my senior year who deserved a real shot. I say that not from ego or frustration, but from the simple truth of the matter and my outstanding results on many former teams. I made a monumental, absurd effort to outwork most players on the McDaniel College baseball team, including going to the baseball diamond at crazy hours after practice to practice on my own, and I did well in practices and scrimmages. My success was in the effort, not in the amount of playing time I got. As cliché as it may sound, the journey truly was the destination.
• Developing lifelong healthy habits. College sports teams require time in the gym, and I went to the gym a lot to work my ass off – getting stronger and in better shape. To this day, I still work out a lot. This habit I developed turned into a lifelong practice. This is a positive thing, a silver lining from a crappy situation. I also practiced the useful habit of self-discipline.
• The enlightenment is in the trying. Similar to the success being in your effort, with its own nuance, it’s joyful to realize what you attempted. Yoda’s quote, do or do not, there is no try takes on new meaning here. It’s not always about achievement. Sometimes it’s about who you are being and the person you’re becoming. I say this in a genuinely humble way: Division III baseball was WAY more competitive than I imagined it would be. It’s not that I expected it to be easy. At the same time, I realized that there are a LOT of talented players out there. This does not discredit my own abilities or take away from the fact that I was known as one of the best hitters in the country in my age group. What I’m doing here is pointing out that it was an honor to be competing against some of the best players in the world – some who went on to play in the minors and even pros. It wasn’t as embarrassing as I thought it would be to be a benchwarmer – yeah, it no doubt sucked, but it was exciting to be on the same field as players with elite talent. Every game, I had to leave my ego in my dorm room, step onto the field, and be an encouraging teammate. It was humbling to keep my teammates’ best interests at heart without getting too down on myself in regards to my own playing time situation.
• Developing the skill of dealing with difficult people. There were some really difficult and nasty players on my college baseball team. I had friends, but there were a handful of people who I really didn’t get along with. One of my teammates physically assaulted me in our senior years (for the full story, read the article Dealing with Bullies: How to Cope When People Are Cruel on the Tiny Buddha site that I linked to above). In the real world, I’ve encountered some truly nasty, rotten people and my college baseball teammates prepared me for that. I was talking to one of my former college baseball teammates recently, a person I am good friends with, venting to him about some brutally judgmental coworkers…one who ended up stabbing me in the back. My former college baseball teammate said, well, at least your college baseball teammates prepared you for stuff like this. It’s sad that there are people like this in the world, but it’s good to be aware of it and even better to have the skills to effectively deal with them. My friend nailed it with this sentiment.

I’m sure I can think of more lessons from my painful college baseball experience, but these five are a good start. When you focus on the silver lining and lessons learned from your challenges, it keeps you optimistically oriented to the future instead of bitterly remembering the past. I’m definitely not saying to disregard your negative feelings – reflect on them, face them, and process them, including considering seeing a therapist. Once you’ve done that, you can move forward with your in life in a growth-oriented way.

Have you ever not reached your goals in sports, business, relationships, or something else you cared deeply about? Shoot me an email at jeff@jeffdspeaks.com and let me know – I’m genuinely interested.

I will see you, my friend, at the Mountaintop.

Jeff Davis is the award-winning author of Reach Your Mountaintop: 10 Keys to Finding the Hidden Opportunity in Your Setbacks, Flipping What You’ve Heard on Its Head, and Achieving Legendary Goals.