“Don’t be afraid to fail! It’s the only way that you get better!” my daughter’s coach shouts to her from side of court.
Volleyball game, my daughter serves. She’s winning point after point, but the team they’re playing is far from the toughest they will face, and while hitting target places on the court, she’s not practicing tougher skills.
“Jump-serve!” he tells her.
Eye contact as he speaks, nod when he ends, she is coachable and listens.
She backs off from the baseline, leans over to dribble (four bounces), spins the ball in hand, then moves and tosses in approach.
She crushes it, smokes the shot!
A whistle, foot-fault on the back line.
She fails—but in a way that is work to better.
It is easy to be comfortable, to stay with what is working when things are easy and we defer and pretend tougher games and times won’t come. Then when they do, the easy in our comforts don’t work the way they did.
It’s the failings in our highpoints, willingness to risk, to work—failing toward improvement and new and further skills—when it doesn’t seem the effort’s needed that prepares us for the tougher games.
She failed—but in a way that made her better.
She was not afraid to fail, not afraid to try.
After, I tell her that hit was my favorite of hers all day. She went for it, not afraid to try, working on a tougher skill when the easy was enough.
She’ll be ready come tougher games.
She inspires me, even at forty, to not be afraid and try—to keep failing in improvement.