Getting Up Off the Mat

The player is having a rough game.

He can't make a shot, is defending a tough opponent, and his stats early in the 3rd quarter are well below his season averages.

After another miss with his team trailing by double digits, he’s subbed out and heads to the bench.

“Man, I can’t make a shot tonight,” he tells a teammate.

But while the player may be struggling, he’s not on the bench because of his misses. He’s there because the misses have led to other mistakes — poor defense, bad body language and sluggish movements on the court.

Just about all of us as coaches, executives and leaders at some point make elementary errors.

We forget the clipboard for a game. We fail to charge our laptop before our lecture. We misspeak early on in a presentation.

But too often, these slip-ups fluster us and lead to larger, more consequential errors that could’ve easily been avoided.

Chicago Bulls Coach Billy Donovan highlighted the pitfalls of this mentality after a recent game.

“I’m letting the team down because I turned the ball over. I’m letting the team down because I missed a shot. I’m letting the team down because I blew a defensive assignment. No, you’re letting the team down when it parlays into four or five possessions after that,” Donovan said.

“You’ve got to pick yourself up off the mat because it’s a game that’s imperfect and you’re going to make mistakes. It’s how you collectively respond to overcome what’s in front of you regardless of what’s going on.”

The point is that while self-improvement certainly entails limiting errors, it’s also largely about making mistakes, appropriately responding to them, and quickly moving on.

It's incredibly difficult to achieve future success by dwelling on our past and getting hung up on the little things we could've done better.

And ultimately, these gaffes are rarely our undoing.

It’s a poor response to them that is.