Why Great Athletes Make Mistakes (And What They Do Next)
I spoke with a young softball pitcher this week who reminded me of something I see almost every day in my work with athletes.
We have a lot of kids expecting themselves to be better than the professionals. Seriously!
I work with a lacrosse goalie who gets frustrated when she doesn't save shots that even professional goalies would struggle to stop. I have pre-teen pitchers who get upset when they throw balls instead of strikes.
And I've worked with basketball players who are disappointed with shooting percentages that would make Steph Curry pretty happy! Think about that for a minute. Stephen Curry, arguably the greatest shooter in basketball history, has made about 42% of his career three-point attempts.
That means he misses almost six out of every ten! And we have young athletes who think missing three shots in a row means something is wrong with them.
We've got to help our athletes understand what successful performance actually looks like.
Mistakes are part of the game. Literally.
On our GameChangers Athlete Edition podcast, NWSL and Kansas City Current midfielder, Katie Scott and her parents, Nick and Karen, shared perspectives about soccer being a game of mistakes. And they're right! Think about how many passes are intercepted, shots miss the goal, tackles are unsuccessful and scoring opportunities disappear during a single soccer match.
The same is true in every sport.
Major League Baseball players strike out. Pitchers walk batters. Gold Glove winners make errors. These are professionals who have spent decades developing their skills. They train, study, prepare and get paid millions of dollars to perform. And they still make mistakes!
Leadership expert (and my friend), Dr. Jason Ronai, who visited my sport leadership class this morning, shared an example that really puts this into perspective. Derek Jeter committed 56 errors in 126 games during his 1993 minor league season.
FIFTY-SIX!
That's nearly one error every two games. And we're talking about Derek Jeter!
Imagine if he had decided those errors meant he wasn't good enough to play shortstop. Instead, he kept learning, competing, and improving. And we know how that story ended.
Somewhere along the way, we've confused striving for excellence with expecting perfection. And that confusion is costing our athletes confidence, enjoyment and opportunities to grow. And here’s the real problem…the mistake isn’t always the biggest problem!!!
This is where things get interesting!!
When athletes believe mistakes shouldn't happen, every mistake becomes something bigger than the mistake itself. A missed shot becomes, "I'm a terrible shooter." A walk becomes, "I can't pitch today." A goal allowed becomes, "I'm letting my team down."
Instead of processing information about one play, athletes begin making judgments about themselves. And those judgments can influence what happens next.
Dr. Ronai calls some of these reactions self-inflicted wounds. I love that description!
We make an error. That's one problem. Then we compound it by getting distracted, showing frustration, blaming someone else, or carrying that mistake into the next play.
Now we have two problems!
Dr. Ronai teaches his teams to recognize what he calls DEBTSS:
D — Distraction: Losing attention to things unrelated to the next task.
E — Embarrassment: Getting caught up in what others might think about our mistake.
B — Blame: Looking for someone or something else to hold responsible.
T — Taunting: Using communication that creates unnecessary conflict.
S — Sarcasm: Communicating in ways that can undermine teammates and trust.
S — Self-pity: Getting stuck in the unfairness of what happened rather than exploring what we can do next.
Consider how much attention and energy these reactions can consume. The original mistake may have lasted two seconds. But our response can influence the next two minutes, the next inning, or the rest of the game.
And here's an important distinction. We're allowed to feel disappointed, frustrated, or embarrassed. Those are normal human responses!!
The skill is recognizing what we're doing with those feelings and choosing a productive response.
Jason shared another distinction I think every coach should consider. Two of his five core values are POISE and TOUGHNESS. He describes poise as our proactive mindset and toughness as our reactive mindset. In other words, poise is understanding that adversity is coming.
We're going to miss shots, throw balls, commit errors, and make decisions that don't work out. That's part of competing.
TOUGHNESS is what happens next. Can we recover our attention? Can we take responsibility? Can we make a useful adjustment and return to competing?
I think this is an important way to rethink toughness. Sometimes we describe tough athletes as those who never seem bothered by anything. But toughness isn't the absence of emotion. It's our ability to respond productively when things aren't going the way we hoped.
And that ability improves with practice.
Before a recent pitching lesson, Kyla Holas, head coach of the USA Softball 18U National Team, sent me an image illustrating a Think Box, Decision Line and Play Box. I shared the concept with her young pitching student...who isn't all about throwing balls...or walking people...at a young age...when she is just learning!!
The idea is simple. Think. Decide. Play.
In the Think Box, we evaluate, plan and decide what we want to do. At the Decision Line, we commit to the next action. In the Play Box, our job is to execute. See the target. Trust the preparation. Throw the pitch. What I love about this approach is that it gives mistakes a productive place in the process.
There is a time to reflect, a time to decide and a time to perform. Research on performance under pressure suggests that excessive attention to the mechanics of skills we've already learned can interfere with execution.
So, when we carry our disappointment or analysis into the next play, we may be making the next task more difficult than it needs to be.
We can learn from the last play without allowing it to control the next one. It’s a choice…that takes a lot of practice…moving from the Think Box, stepping over that commitment line…and into the Play Box…over and over and over again!
Research on error-management training offers another important lesson. A meta-analysis by Keith and Frese found that training approaches encouraging people to explore, make mistakes, and learn from those mistakes can improve learning outcomes, particularly when people must apply their skills to unfamiliar situations.
Think about what that means for athletes.
We spend enormous amounts of time trying to eliminate errors. But errors can help us understand what needs attention. A pitcher who walks a batter might recognize something about her timing, approach, or focus. A goalie who allows a goal might learn something about positioning. A basketball player who misses an open shot might realize that the decision was excellent, even though the execution wasn't successful.
Sometimes we need to make a correction. Sometimes we need to keep doing exactly what we're doing. A bad outcome doesn't always mean we made a bad decision or that we’re bad. Mistakes are information, not identity. And that's something young athletes especially need to learn.
This whole “I’ve got to be perfect mindset takes away one of the greatest assets of sport! Sport gives us a place to practice overcoming!
Jason reminded us this morning that sport provides repeated opportunities to experience setbacks, recover and try again. And those experiences can help us develop habits that extend far beyond competition.
I remember when I had breast cancer as a 32-year-old. I had shoulder surgery, then 3 surgeries to manage the cancer…my right side was a mess…so I spent a lot of time doing rehab. The trainer I worked with reminded me that, as I learned in sport, there’s always another pitch to play…and just because something doesn’t go the way you planned, how you manage what’s in front of you will influence what happens next.
I think we sometimes overlook how valuable that is. We're so busy trying to help our athletes succeed that we forget how much they can learn from struggling. From making an error and staying engaged. From losing and returning to practice. From trying something difficult, failing, making an adjustment and trying again. And from pushing your body past or through uncomfortable experiences!
Portland State softball coach Meadow McWhorter often talks about peaks and valleys and the idea of winning or learning. Progress isn't a straight line. And if athletes become afraid of mistakes, they may become reluctant to take the very risks that help them improve.
They hesitate to attack. They avoid the difficult pass. They become tentative instead of competitive. We need athletes who are willing to make mistakes in pursuit of getting better.
And coaches who recognize that mistakes and high standards can coexist.
Here's something I think we could do better across every sport. Maybe we need to normalize the numbers! Show our athletes what real performance statistics look like. Not just the highlight reels. Not just the record-breaking performances.
The actual numbers.
Show basketball players how frequently great shooters miss. Show pitchers that even elite professionals walk batters and give up hits. Show goalies that allowing goals is part of playing a position where the other team is actively trying to score. Show hitters that even the best players make outs far more often than they get hits.
And help athletes understand the context behind those statistics. A save percentage, shooting percentage, or batting average doesn't tell the entire story. Shot difficulty, competition level, game situations and the athlete's role all matter.
The goal isn't to convince athletes that average is good enough. It's to help them establish expectations that are challenging, informed and realistic.
Realistic expectations give us a foundation for improvement. Impossible expectations give us a reason to feel like we're failing.
As I think about my conversation with the little pitcher that Coach Holas and I share, the thing I want her to understand most is that she can be a great pitcher and throw balls. (In fact, great pitchers throw balls...and get people to chase!!) She can be confident and walk a batter. She can be improving and have a difficult inning.
None of those things are mutually exclusive.
The same goes for our goalie, our basketball players, our soccer players and every athlete trying to master a game that will never be played perfectly.
We can hold high standards. We can expect preparation, effort, attention and accountability. And we can acknowledge that mistakes will happen.
Our job is to help athletes separate the mistake from the meaning they attach to it and the response they choose afterward. Because we all make mistakes. The goal isn't to become an athlete who never makes them. It's to become an athlete who knows what to do next.
This week, consider two questions:
Are the expectations we're placing on athletes based on what successful performance actually looks like?
And are we helping them learn from mistakes or unintentionally teaching them to fear them?
The next mistake is coming. And so is the next opportunity. Win or learn. Think. Decide. Play.
That's how we get better.
Julie
Julie Jones
Mental Performance Coach
SSB Performance
juliej@ssbperformance.com • 234-206-0946
Comments