Failing Forward: Five Lessons in Resilience

Decades on the bike have taught me a great deal about performance, persistence, preparation and the art of developing resilience.

Some lessons come from the races themselves. Others emerge, like this one about resilience, from the miles and reflections afterwards.

In this series, I share a few of the lessons the road has taught me, and what they might mean for life on two wheels and life on two feet.

Failing Forward

I’m going to take you back to the first week of May 2021, to the morning after I was forced to abandon my first Wild Atlantic Way World Record attempt.

You know that awful first morning when you begin to wake, and with the first remembrance of what has happened, the grey hue of failure descends.

Yes, that morning.

I used the phrase failing forward in a live interview that morning. It seemed to resonate with many of you, as a way of acknowledging failure while making it clear that this wasn’t going to be a full stop.

You’ll also remember another phrase I used: sometimes the race wins.

Simple phrases or adages can be useful in moments of great turmoil. They’re concise, memorable and philosophical. They wrap raw moments up in neat little bows of wisdom and experience.

But what happens when you get home and the raw emotion of failure, fatigue and disappointment rips off that bow to expose the cracks, the gaps and the broken dreams?

We’ve all been there. We’ve all failed. And if we want to keep progressing, personally or in performance, we may have to visit this place again.

So, for what it’s worth, here are five things I’ve learned about navigating the process of failing forward.

1. Expect it to be gut-wrenching

Of course it is. You’ve invested time, effort, hope and vision into achieving something you really wanted. It doesn’t matter whether the goal was public or private. You pushed yourself, made yourself vulnerable and put something important on the line.

It’s going to hurt for a while.

But there’s value in staying with that initial gut-wrenching feeling long enough to begin unravelling the raw experience. The mind is remarkably quick to sanitise what has happened. Some part of you wants the pain to stop, and there’s an unconscious tendency to find a less painful alternative story and repeat it until you believe it.

You might move out of the gut-wrenching phase more quickly, but you may also lose some of the most valuable early insights.

This isn’t about failing comfortably with your ego intact. It’s about failing forward.

2. Examine and challenge every insight

When the initial gut-wrenching begins to settle into a more stable sense of disappointment, it’s time to lay out those first insights and examine them.

And I mean examine them. Challenge what you think you know.

Is there another explanation? What information am I missing? What assumptions am I making? Who do I need to talk to?

Valuable information will emerge through this process. But there’s something important to remember: when you’re still steeped in disappointment, you need to understand the difference between blame and responsibility.

Blame is a self-protective mechanism that can keep you stuck. It comes quickly and easily, but it can trap you in a circular, unsubstantiated narrative.

Forward won’t come from a circular narrative.

Responsibility has weight and substance. You have to hold it, feel it and absorb the weight and emotion of it. Given time, that weight begins to crack open, revealing further insight.

And that leads to forward.

One important point: assume responsibility only for what is yours to assume, and allow others to do the same. You can’t move other people forward. You can only move yourself.

3. Take your time and only bite off what you can chew

Put some limits on conversations and thinking time. Be careful about whom you talk to, too. Even well-intentioned comments can land painfully when you’re hurting and your usual defences aren’t quite up to the job.

You can’t force insight. But you can recreate emotional and mental upset, sending yourself straight down the blame-and-inflame rabbit hole.

Instead, put yourself in different environments. Have different conversations. Not to avoid what happened, but to give it room to breathe.

As the emotion begins to dissipate, it leaves space for perspective and a more complete understanding of the experience.

You don’t have to work everything out in one sitting. Sometimes, stepping away is part of the work.

By now, forward is beginning to take over. It’s being fuelled by everything you’re learning.

 4. Integrate your insight into a new plan

Now that you know what you know, the question becomes simple: what can you do differently next time?

The race, the route or the goal may be exactly the same, but you are different.

You’ve learned something about yourself, your preparation, your decisions or the demands of the challenge. You have new information to work with.

A new approach or plan often begins to flow more naturally at this point. There’s a sense of momentum returning, along with a confidence grounded in experience rather than expectation.

You’re no longer simply trying to put a disappointing experience behind you. You’re using it.

You are actively failing forward.

5. Get back in the saddle and go again

Because you’ve worked through this process, the next time you step up to that start line, you’re already closer to your goal.

It’s still nerve-wracking. The risk of failure is still there. But so is the confidence and momentum that failing forward brings.

You begin to understand that failure didn’t break you. In fact, you looked it in the eye, smiled, brought it home for a long conversation, and discovered it could become a valuable friend.

You’re better equipped to find that performance edge where you can soar.

That’s no adage. That’s the gift of failing forward.

It takes courage and grit, and it isn’t easy. But standing in Kinsale in August 2021, at the finish of the Wild Atlantic Way having set a Guinness World Record, I can tell you, hand on heart, it’s worth it.

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Progress rarely follows a straight line. Sometimes, the most valuable lessons come from the days when things don’t go to plan.

Joe brings decades of racing experience to his coaching helping riders prepare for their goals, work through challenges and make better decisions along the way.

If you’re working towards something that matters to you, let’s chat.