You are the Chairperson of the Sports Club at your school. You are giving a speech to the club members. The inspiration for the speech comes from the following famous sports quote about how you can succeed in sports if you learn from your failures.
I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career.
I’ve lost almost 300 games.
Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed.
I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life.
And that is why I succeed.
Michael Jordan
Good morning, everyone. I’m the chairperson of the Sports Club, Chris Wong. It’s gladdening to see all of the Sports Club members sitting here. Recently, I’ve read a well-known sports quote by Michael Jordan. If you’re a basketball player or a die-hard fan of basketball, you must know who he is. He’s a famous, successful and wonderful player. I admire him so much. It’s all because of his optimistic attitude. Today, I’m not going to share about how successful he is. Instead, I’m going to talk about how we can succeed through failures.
Failure is something which all of us are afraid of, especially for athletes. Every sports player, whether a volleyball player or a runner, wants to win and be the champion. Who doesn’t? However, it’s impossible for us to be bathed in the applause with shining confetti every time after a match. The most important thing is to learn from our failures as they bring us success.
In order to succeed, we must learn from the failures and know our mistakes and weaknesses. From the game, we should learn and know our problems or the faults in tactics. With reviews and reflections, we’ll know what and how to improve our skills. If you lose because of the miss of the pivotal game-winning shot, then you know what skills you lack and practise more in shooting in order to make the shot accurate and precise. This is why failure is important. Well, losing is definitely not the end of the world. Rather, learning from your failed games is of utmost importance as failures pave the way to success.
What is more, failures usually make your determination and passion in winning stronger. It’s not uncommon to see athletes being complacent because of the continuous success and eventually they lose. I think most of you know the complicated feeling when you cannot get a medal, right? You cry but there’s a fire starting to burn deep in your heart. You want to be stronger, have better techniques and win in the next competition. Yes, just like Michael Jordan, he has lost nearly 300 games. However, he’s still successful. I bet it’s all because he wasn’t let down by his failures or stagnated in his sports career. He just learns, practises and grows up.
Having a right attitude and mindset when you deal with failures is important as it determines whether you can win next time. I still remember the failure that I had when I was in F.3. In the final round of the table- tennis competition, I lost in the last game and finally my team couldn’t get the champion. I totally cracked down at that moment and burst into tears, thinking that I ruined the whole game. My teacher encouraged me and told me that the path to success is always full of obstacles and failures and it’s inevitable. I keep bearing it in mind afterwards till now. Everyone will lose. We’ve to adjust our thoughts and attitudes. Face your failures and don’t escape from them. Failures will be valuable and meaningful as long as you are optimistic enough and learn from them.
As the old saying goes, “failure is the mother of success.” Famous sports players succeed because they have failed over and over again. Never lose your faith and passion in sports. No matter whenever you win or lose in the matches, you still have rewards. Keep going, thank you.
Kwok Nok Tsin
6B 2015-16