3 Things Failure Can Teach You About Success, According To These Athletes

In a few weeks, athletes from around the world will perform almost super-human feats of strength and agility at the 2016 Rio Olympics and Paralympics. When they win, their shiny faces will beam with joy and pride as the flags are lowered and their national anthems blare on the loudspeakers.

And they’ll owe a lot of their success not to past victories, but to past failures.

While it may seem counterintuitive, failing to reach the goals you set for yourself may actually set the stage for future success ― provided you have a perspective that helps you view your past losses as lessons, not as omens of more failure to come.

“Research shows that when people are in an achievement mindset, it can create stress, which really detracts from focus,” says IHPI member and director of the Sport, Health, and Activity Research and Policy Center at the University of Michigan. “Once you don’t have that fear over your head anymore, then you can really focus.”