Why I’m so glad Emma lost her match!
After her meteoric rise and stunning Grand Slam victory at the U.S. Open last month, emma raducanu has come crashing down. the overnight sensation pulled out of this week’s Kremlin Cup at the last minute after being knocked out of her last competition in California by the world number 100.
After the British superstar fell to a 6-2 6-4 straight sets loss to Aliaksandra Sasnovich, she could be forgiven for being upset. But the Kent teenager was having none of it at the press conference afterwards.
Instead of beating herself up about the failure, she replied: ‘I’m 18 years old. I need to cut myself some slack.’
Quite right! She really does seem to have her head screwed on the right way, doesn’t she? Despite her tender age, she seems wise beyond her years.
I don’t mean this to sound cruel, at all, but I’m pleased she lost. It might just be the making of her.
A string of successes would risk making her complacent and only mean the inevitable fall would be all the more painful. far better to fail, win, fail and win, gradually learning and growing. that’s the way to do it. And emma seems to know this.
She went on and explained she was ‘kind of glad that what happened today happened, so I can learn and take it as a lesson. So going forward I’ll have more experience banked.’
What an absolutely spot-on attitude. My goodness, if ever she wants to give up tennis she should train to be a psychotherapist. She has the secret to a happy, successful life nailed.
No wonder she’s the bookie’s favourite for Sports Personality of the Year. She deserves to win for teaching us so much about how we should all approach our failures. Because this is the lesson: failure can be the best thing that happens to you.
I look back at myself when I was her age and had a similar experience of riding high then failing.
I sailed through the first year at medical school while, really, doing minimal work. I got great grades and had a ball. My memory has always been quite good and it seemed to be just learning a lot of Latin words. Piece of cake.
Or so I thought. When it came to the end of my first year exams, I suddenly realised there were big gaps in my knowledge.
Unlike other courses at university, there was a vast amount to revise and the exams were crammed into a few weeks, so last minute studying was limited. I realised that, despite my initial success, I’d been stupidly complacent and cocky.
to my horror, I failed two of the exams, which meant I failed the entire year.
I had to repeat them over the summer holidays with the threat that if I failed again, I would be kicked out of medical school entirely. My medical career hung in the balance. I felt sick to my stomach. While my friends were relaxing on their break, I spent the summer in the library. It was gutting. thankfully, I passed and progressed into the second year. But, my goodness, it made me knuckle down. While it was horrible at the time, I’m pleased I failed. It taught me a valuable lesson and I never failed an exam again, and, in fact, started to win prizes. two years later I did another degree in anthropology and came top of the year with a starred first. I’m sure the only reason I worked hard enough to get that was because of that failure in the first year. It was a wake-up call when I needed it and made me think about how to structure my learning so I could still enjoy myself; how to set up routines and regular study time each day. It gave me a discipline I still have even now. We use the idea of the benefit of failure a lot in mental health. everyone who is trying to change unhelpful or unwanted behaviour will fail. It’s inevitable.
People with drug addiction, alcoholism or eating disorders will slip up and fail on their recovery journey.
While it can be disheartening at the time, it’s actually a good thing. It is an invaluable insight into the nature of their difficulties and helps them avoid repeating it in the future. It gives them a deeper, more profound understanding of their condition on which they can build.
failure is an inevitable part of success. And understanding and embracing failure teaches us so much about life in general.
Successful people are successful not because they never fail. they always fail. they are a success because they learn from their failures.
In fact, we should welcome failure because everything worth doing is difficult, and so failure is bound to happen at some point or another.
I often remind patients who feel despondent because they’ve messed up that successful people fail again and again. We should all fail and fail again, but each time try to learn something from it. that way we gain from failure rather than lose.
As Samuel Beckett wrote: ‘ever tried. ever failed. No matter. try again. fail again. fail better.’
So don’t worry, emma. the way you’ve approached your failure shows that you’re winning.
OLDER people are kinder than younger people, a study published last week found. I have long suspected this, and the facts speak for themselves. They are less likely to commit crimes, graffiti or drop litter. They aren’t part of antisocial behaviour. They are a force for good. Let’s hear it for the oldies!