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 Chris Wong from 5A and I’m glad that I can have a chance to give a speech here as the chairperson of the Sports Club. First of all, let me thank all of you for coming to the first grand meeting of Sports Club this year. Here, we’ve some old members from previous years as well as some newcomers. Well, your interests may be volleyball, basketball, football or badminton and so on. However, I know all of you’ve shared a common vision, which is to be an active and successful player in your team.
Therefore, in the next few minutes, I would like to share with you the key to success in sports. Let me share with you a famous quote from Michael Jordan, which is so inspiring and motivating. “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. I’ve failed over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” Get the message behind? Yes, it is vitally important for us to learn from our failures. Playing sports is not plain sailing. Challenges and adversities are waiting for us in the days ahead. How can we prepare for them? Experience failures.
Learning from failures allows us to improve our skills. Not concrete enough? More precisely, it is to see, identify, reflect and finally improve ourselves. It is the only way, in which we can ensure the same mistakes made by us will not happen again. But, is it difficult? To be honest, yes. Still remember the 9000 missing shots of Michael Jordan? Only after facing the gigantic challenge could he become successful. We should also bear in mind that the enhancement is not instant but progressive. I bet he has learnt from his every single missing shot. In a word, learning from every mistake made can absolutely let us boost our levels and become a successful player.
Playing sports is not just about demonstrating our techniques, though. It is about our spirits. Why did some players who are skilled but fail? They gave up too easily and early. Learning from failures can help prevent this from happening. Once you fail, think about your mistakes. Then you’ll know what’s wrong with you and would like to try again. When you keep on practising, the never-give-up spirit can be built. We can then tell ourselves to keep going spontaneously no matter what challenges we are facing. Never be mentally fragile and keep lambasting yourselves when you fail. Try thinking about your mistakes rationally and you are able to make ready your soul to confront any difficulty.
Speaking of myself, I once had an experience of failure. That was indeed tough. However, when I overcame it, the result was rewarding, beneficial and unforgettable. It’s been two years already. At that time, I was a newbie of the volleyball team and I thought I was the dumbest one on my team. Just after a few months of training, I was “assigned” to join the inter-school volleyball competition by my PE teacher.
The match was exciting. Hardly could we distinguish which team was better as the scores of both teams were always the same. Unfortunately, just at the last few seconds of the game, the ball was struke to me but I missed it. We lost the contest and I felt extremely sad.
Luckily, the higher form team members weren’t that fragile. Instead, they told me that one failure means nothing. The important thing is that we have to learn from it. They were like what I am doing here with you. It was really a motivating memory.
Up till now, what would you like to be? A member who easily gives up or a member who can learn from failures and become successful? I hope that I can inspire you today and you can be the good player as you wish. The tassel is worth the hassle. Do your best in the days ahead! Thank you!
Dick Ho Yik Chung
6E 2015-2016