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 As a cricketer, success is easy to see: Runs, wickets and victories. If you fail you have done badly. And while winning is the ultimate point, the way to get there is by embracing your failures.
We all fail. Perfection is impossible. What is possible is how you react to the failure. You can learn from your mistakes and become a stronger player because of the failure. In fact, this method is so powerful that really good players build failure into their training deliberately. Rather than avoiding errors, they are embracing it as a way to free themselves from the tyranny of achieving perfection.
After all, you do just as well when you know what not to do as, as when you know what to do.
1. Accept failure as a teacher
So, what do you do when things go wrong? You embrace the troubles because they are telling you something. Mine the information to find out more. It starts by simply asking yourself "what is this experience teaching me?"
It might be something technical - like you are better at driving with your chin down - but it doesn't have to be. It can teach you about how you respond to failure and what you need to do to manage your thoughts and actions around it. It can teach you that you need to be fitter, or more focused, or less stressed. It helps you build a picture of yourself.
Sometimes this can be seen on a video or in stats, sometimes it's softer and more difficult to pin down. Yet at the root of every failure is always a lesson where you can learn about yourself. This is tough because often you want to react to failure by trying to ignore it. You don't want the pain of recalling when things went wrong, so you try hard to let it go. In fact, the time when it is most sore is the time use it. Find that core.
2. Every failure is one closer to success
One way to do this is to see your failures as a stepping stone to success. Every time you do something wrong, you can cross it off your list of possible options until there is only one thing left.
Think about when you bat in nets. Let's say you are getting out to spinners because you are stuck in the crease and you want to use your feet to get to the pitch of the ball. During that session, every spinner you face, every ball they bowl, is a chance for you to experiment. It's going to be hard. There's going to be a lot of failure as you run past a few and hit a few up in the air.
But that's the point. You do that for three session in a row and you start to learn which balls you can run towards and which ones you can play on the crease. You get better despite failing. You get better because of failing.
3. Testing is the authority
Of course, you can only train this way if everyone accepts that testing is the ultimate indicator of success. It's tempting to go in to sessions, blaze the ball around, knock stumps over and strut around like a peacock (or feel awful about yourself when you don't do well).
Instead, go in with the aim to learn something.
Maybe you learn what works for you. Maybe you learn what doesn't work for you. Let the test be the indicator and not the outcome.
To do that, it must become super-easy to test things. Using tools like PitchVision, you can let the practice run as normal, run your experiments and review the results.
4. Crazy ideas are good
It's not just tips and secrets from the stars that feed into your experimentation. Once you stop seeking the perfect answer, you start seeking the crazy ones. And that's good. Maybe you'll find something unique that has a huge influence on your game.
Take the time to regularly brainstorm ideas. Try and come up with some plans, techniques or methods that are so crazy they might just work. Then go about testing them. This is your chance to play around until you get the outcomes you want. And if it fails?
You already know the answer to that.
5. Get a stats geek
Some argue that stats are ruining the magic of cricket. The simple joys of the game are removed when everything is counted. Yet, some people love digging into the numbers.
So let them.
Having a stats geek on hand to give you useful information when you need it is invaluable. Help them gather it where you can and let them do the review and analysis (unless you are really into it yourself). They will love doing it and you will get some insights you can chose to use or ignore.
With this culture of experimentation, review and embracing failure you'll take your team - and yourself - to new levels.
Let me know what you are working on.
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Train hard; get better. Do your drills. It's a simple mantra, but it's missing a crucial part of the process of practice to improve. Cricketing technique, tactics and mental strength require one more "drill".
