How Failure and Football Shaped Up My Life For The Better

Failure can either open a gateway that leads you a path to success or sometimes it can mentally destroy you and lead you to your downfall and never recover. Nothing in this world will be all rainbows and sunshine. You will be knocked out. Life will drop you to the floor. How you get back up is the game changer. Will you allow failure to overtake you or will it inspire you? All of the greats are who they are because of failure. Failure completely revolutionized their lives, and this is why this piece has the power to change yours, with telling you my personal experience.

First things first, I’m a young teenager. I haven’t experienced anything yet. I’m still learning and growing and hopefully, this article does give this “wise-know it all” persona. Frankly, you readers might have experienced more life than me. However, this article of my personal experience with failure can still be valuable and can help you with dealing with failure and how it can reshape your lives as well.

My biggest passion is Football. I love it. I would play every day and used to spend most weekends with friends renting a pitch and playing all night. During stressful school nights, the only thing that would excite me is knowing after studying is that I would stay up to watch the Champions League (European Football Championship for Clubs.) Even though I would often sleep at classes for that reason, it still offered me something to look forward to and in general, gave me happiness. As my passion grew for the game, so did my ability with playing it.

Football became more serious for me at my freshman year of high school. I thought of myself as better than most of my friends (I still do) and thought I need to step it up. I was constantly getting better and thought a good option for me was to join a football club. So I opted to join in one of the best football clubs in Bahrain, which was Riffa. I was extremely nervous on my first day. I didn’t know most of the players there and as soon as I walked in and saw the squad, I just felt like I wouldn’t fit in. The players there were completely different in terms of their personality and lifestyle. It was hard for me to make friends and that generated on the pitch. Even though I wasn’t that bad in my first few practices, I knew I was capable of doing more.

Our first game of the season was on the horizon and I was optimistic. The game started and with all the experienced and the best players playing on the field. My team was extremely dominant on the pitch and we scored a few goals. As the second half approached, I heard the coach say my name. I was confused and asked him to repeat. He angrily replied, “go warm-up!” I was extremely shocked, nervous and excited at the same time. However, the problem that I had there was that the coach was only willing to play me as a striker and I was not really a striker. I was a central midfielder. This caused me to be more worried as not only I had to adapt to new people, but now a completely new position. During the game, I was actually not that bad. I had a lot of touches and played a few good passes. As the game went on, I got a cross inside the box and I scored. I was absolutely delighted with the goal and I thought I might actually get to do well with the club. Belief started to build up. I went home really happy and I believed this could be the start of something special. However, things turned sour really quickly.

The next practices came along and I continued to play as a striker. Normally, learning something new requires doing mistakes. However, at the club that I was in, mistakes were not an option. The coach grew frustrated with my mistakes and lack of knowledge in how to play the position. I also felt like I was letting him down and as each practice passed my confidence was decreasing and I was not playing to my potential. As games passed, I was on the bench and I didn’t play at all. There was even a game where every single player on the roster played but except for me. I was clearly an outcast. I started losing my belief in my ability and thought I was just not a good player. My development and progress as a player froze. Also as practices took 2–3 hours of my time daily, my grades were average. I decided not to give up that easily and still try. However as months passed on, unfortunately, no progress has been made. I was dropped with the reserves(the players of the club who don’t get to play) and our sessions there was deemed not too important.

I was still going there still believing I might breakthrough however that has not happened. I was clearly not happy and I decided to quit going. I didn’t quit on the game, just the club. I started going to another club which the people there had a similar lifestyle and was way easier for me to get a long with. I had to pay to enter, but it was a game changer. I started playing a lot and I have even been to London with the team. Also, we won a competition against clubs from GCC countries. I was progressing with the club and the decision to quit my first club, even though it was a bigger household name, was one of the best decisions I have done as I still benefit from it till this day.
This must teach you the importance of failure. I still have a long road to go and you never know what might happen. Failure is not something you should be afraid of. Be excited about it, fight it, challenge it and pass through it. The biggest reason why people are not where they should be is because of that fear of jumping in order to reach that pedal stone that they want. Fear will let you stay on the ground forever. You will never get to reach the peak of the mountain if you never climbed it in the first place.

I wrote this piece hoping I can inspire many readers. One thing I have learned from my failures is to take responsibility. For anything that you do in life, it is extremely important to know your life, your mistakes, your responsibility. You failed because the teacher is bad? Get a tutor and study more. You didn’t practice because it was cold outside? Wear a jacket. Blaming other people or things will not take you anywhere. Failure helped me become self-aware and understand that I shouldn’t blame anybody but except for myself for failing to adapt.

One major flaw you can also learn from my experience is my mentality. I entered that club with no self- belief and confidence a lot. I already told my mind I will fail, so how can my body succeed? I got into the pitch with a losing mentality. I can’t expect to win when I already lost before entering the pitch. Understanding your thoughts are absolutely pivotal in anything you do in your life and they will be a huge reason in either succeeding or failing. This is a battle between you, and you. Once you can beat that person inside your head, there is not another person or obstacle that you cannot beat.

At the end of the day, always do what makes you happy. Even if that means resigning or leaving one of your dream jobs or roles if you’re not happy then why are you doing it? Also being self-aware of your errors that led you to your failure are an absolute must in order for you to progress and develop in your craft or profession. After going through what I did, I am more ready to face failure and challenge it rather than being fearful of it and run away from it. This experience allowed me to grow and help me in other skills as well such as studying which I’m slowly excelling at. For me, this is not only just a football lesson but a life lesson. “Failure is a bruise, not a tattoo.” — Jon Sinclair