Failure

In light of Tuesday night, I’ve been thinking about failure and its meaning. The Marriam-Webster dictionary has eight different definitions:

·     Omission of occurrence or performance

·     A state of inability to perform a normal function

·     An abrupt cessation of normal functioning

·     A fracturing or giving away under stress

·     A lack of success

·     A falling short

·     One that has failed

I think out of these eight definitions my Tuesday night can be defined by “a fracturing or giving away under stress”.  Each of us on the team was asked to define failure in our own words. Failure to me is when an individual or team doesn’t succeed because they don’t give 110% effort, do everything in their power to succeed and lack the passion or drive to succeed. If an individual or team does those three things and still fails, then they can walk away knowing they gave it their all. 

Naturally I went to Pinterest to look at motivation quotes relating to failure. There were several that really stood out to me:

·     “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying” – Michael Jordan

·     Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.

These quotes really relate back to my personal definition of failure that I’ve firmly believed since high school. My coach in high school drove the idea of giving 110% into everything you do.

·     Failure is nothing more than a chance to revise your strategy.

I think this quote is perfect for looking forward after Tuesday night. We had taken steps forward last week and now we’re back where we started, which means we need a new strategy.

We started off our season with many tough goals that we thought were completely reachable and now we’re going to need to fight incredibly hard to reach them. I truly believe we can still accomplish them, but to do that every person has to give all of themselves for every game, set and practice.