By Dr. Victor Alewo Adoji
About a week ago, around the world, fans of Arsenal FC and indeed the sporting word celebrated Arsenal’s premier league (EPL) victory after a 22-year hiatus.
While the potpourri of people celebrated, I learnt something new. Part of my new knowledge is that the journey to the championship started 22 years ago and Arsenal won each of those years unbeknown to mockers, jeerers and critics. The club tried several techniques, tactics, individuals, and managers without the ultimate success (albeit, with incremental and strategic improvements) but the truth is those failures and unyielding resilience are the reasons they became champions. Arsenal defined failure as a feedback that recommended a retrial.
The clubs ultimate victory also reminds me of the Law of Wasted Effort which states that “failure and repetition are natural prerequisites for success.” The law suggests that, you must make multiple attempts and endure “wasted” efforts for every breakthrough.
Not many know that Lions only succeed in a quarter of their hunting attempts — which means they fail in 75% of their attempts and succeed in only 25% of them. Despite this small percentage shared by most predators, they don’t despair in their pursuit and hunting attempts.
Also, half of the eggs of fish are eaten… half of baby Bears die before maturity… most of the world’s rains fall in oceans… and most of the seeds of trees are eaten by birds.
The law is “Nature’s Template” underplayed by principles including,
* The Learning Curve: What feels like a waste of time is actually a deposit into your experience bank. Every false start builds resilience, sharpens your instincts, and develops your capacity.
* The Only True Failure: Humans often expect immediate success and get easily discouraged. Arsenal FC has proved that you only truly fail when you stop trying.
Overall, success is not to have a life free of setbacks, pitfalls and failures but success is to walk around your the information therefrom and go beyond every stage where your efforts were seemingly “wasted” while looking forward to the next stage. If there is a phrase that summarises this world, it will simply be: continue all over again.
Finally, don’t discount the value of repeated effort. It might seem like a series of failures will never lead to success. However, you receive invaluable skill and experience by repeating processes. You are perfecting some of your processes, you are refining others. You are becoming the expert on how to succeed one step at a time.
LESSONS FROM ARSENAL FC
* Reframe Setbacks: Instead of viewing failed attempts as wasted time, categorize them as essential learning experiences.
* Embrace Consistency: Keep pushing forward even when immediate results aren’t visible. Success is a numbers game.
REFLECTION
Failure is the opportunity to take the proverbial three steps backwards to see the big picture.
Firstly, it’s always important to remind yourself the where, the why, the when and the how you started. Take time to plot progress on a chart.
Secondly, step back to identify the bottle-neck that will help you work back to the cause of the failure. It’s like untying a ball of wool. You have to find the two ends and then undo the mess in between to ensure that the two are connected seamlessly.
Thirdly, visualize the big picture and reconsider the design flaws in your plan (Re-think, Re-Imagine and Remember that pausing in failures allows you to find your great epiphany).
