Are defeats failures, or lessons to learn for success?

Losing, defeat or being beaten, whatever you want to call it, is never easy to take in a competitive environment. But are you ‘losing’ or are you learning? Because learning develops knowledge, so really…….you’re winning, no? There are many things to analyse when defeat comes around but, fundamentally, there are a some key elements to take on board to put that defeat into perspective.

These include:

- Defeat breeds resilience and strength of character

- Learn from any mistakes made

- Take positives from any defeat

- Have respect for other athletes and their abilities

- Losing will give you many more learning opportunities than winning

- Defeat will make you want victory even more

- Being to self-critical minimises your self-worth, and therefore damages your self-belief

- Performing to your optimum level is, and will remain, your end goal