How to Come Back Stronger from Failure
Coach Taylor, Friday Night Lights
Source: NBC
It’s never over until it’s over.
One of the greatest gifts in life is that we all have the ability to make a comeback.
We are resilient.
We are capable of reinvention.
We can get back up and try again.
We can face failure and react accordingly.
Let the lights shine bright
I don’t know what magic keeps drawing me closer to fictional sports drama, but I recently binge watched the first season of the TV show Friday Night Lights.
In what could be one of my favorite examples of the genre, Friday Night Lights shines brightly indeed.
It deftly navigates between what it means to be on top, what it means to get knocked down, and what it means to reinvent yourself back up from nothing.
A Comeback Story in the Making
In FNL, the Panthers—a High School Football Team from the small town of Dillon, Texas—is riding high.
The small town of Dillon lives and breathes football.
The perfect team. The perfect coach. The perfect quarterback. They have everything—including the best shot possible at going all the way to the State Championship.
Fate though, has a funny way of putting us in our place.
The overly confident Panthers suffer a devastating loss in the first game of the season. Not a game loss. Rather, it’s the loss of their star quarterback to a horrific injury.
They won the game, but in that moment, the Panthers know their season is over.
The second string quarterback has barely played a quarter, let alone a full game.
The situation is dire.
The Panthers Turn it Around
But from the bottom, there are only two choices.
Quit.
Adjust course.
The team rallies behind their new quarterback. And although it’s not the same as before, great care is taken to shepherding the team forward.
One win.
Then another.
And another still.
What once seemed like the end of a dynasty begins to catch fire.
As the momentum grows, the conversation changes from “wait til next year” to “we could actually do this.”
There’s a team chant that the team says every time they go out on the field.
“Clear eyes. Full hearts. Can’t lose.”
Even if the Panthers never won a single game, each one of the boys played with the unrelenting determination to be better for each other, their town, and themselves.
The mindset shift from “we’ve already lost” to “we’ve already won” may have just been what saved their season and their lives.
How to Fight through the Darkness
When failure brings us down, it’s difficult to know what to do next. Stress and anxiety want us to stay down and wallow in the darkness. In that moment, we need to stand up to the resistance, to shift that mindset, and light a path forward. Here are three ways how:
State the Problem in a Different Way - If you feel stuck trying to get out of a difficult situation, try identifying the problem in a way that spins it back towards optimism. Instead of saying that you “failed,” say that you “learned.”
Give yourself a pep talk — It may sound silly, but you can be the champion for yourself and the life you want to have. Give yourself a little talk in the mirror. Look yourself in the eye and tell yourself that you “can do it.”
Don’t stop — One of the reasons that people feel as though they’ve failed is because they gave up just before momentum kicked in or their luck was about to change. If you never stop trying, you’ll never truly fail.
Clear eyes. Full heart. Can’t lose.
Go Panthers.
Until next week, here are links to what I’ve been working on and treasures I’ve found out in the creative wilderness.
Enjoy!
Recent Finds
Dain Walker — Always Plan Three Scenarios (Instagram) | An interesting insight into how fighter pilots plan their missions for varying levels of success so failure can be mitigated. In our own lives, this method has the potential to help us better plan our creative projects, manage our days, and much more.
Joe Rogan — Interview with MrBeast (Podcast) | Love him or hate him, Joe Rogan has some of the most fascinating guests on his show. Recently, he sat down with Jimmy Donaldson aka “MrBeast,” a YouTuber with over 92 million subscribers. MrBeast talks at length about how he got his start and how his singular focus on one thing—creating video content on YouTube—has been his obsession for the past 10 years and the key to his success.
Cal Newport — Deep Work (Book) | I’m currently in the middle of reading “Deep Work” by Cal Newport. Cal is a Computer Science professor at Georgetown University and a prolific writer, having authored over five books to date. Cal makes a solid case for why “Deep Work,” or the important work we do when we are extremely focused on a single subject or task, is simultaneously becoming more rare and in more demand. In a world of distractions and shiny objects, I’m interested to learn more about doubling down on focus and how to do so.
Quote of the Week
“Every man at some point in his life is gonna lose a battle. He’s gonna fight and he’s gonna lose. But what makes him a man is that in the midst of that battle, he does not lose himself. This game is not over. This battle is not over.”
— Coach Eric Taylor, Friday Night Lights
That's all for now.
Stay creative, my friends—and have a great week!
