Demola Rewaju: Lessons from Wawrinka’s win – How to fail better till you win (Y! Superblogger)

by Demola Rewaju

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Thirdly and most importantly, Wawrinka never quit. Maybe because of the stuff I’ve been through but I’ve never really been able to understand the mindset of people who throw in the towel. Failure is never permanent until you give up which is a very foolish thing to do.

If history was written before it played out nobody could have predicted Stanislas Wawrinka would win the Australian Open – that is a big deal for lawn tennis buffs around the world and if you’re not so much of a lawn tennis enthusiast, you may not know his name even though you’ve heard of others like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic. Traditionally, these big four between them have won all the grand slam titles since 2005 (that’s like winning the Champions League on different continents) but over the weekend, Wawrinka (pronounced Va-Vreeng-Ka) stunned the bookmakers and won the title.

I became interested in him at some point when I heard he had defeated Novak Djokovic and made it through Tomas Berdych to set-up a place in the final versus Rafael Nadal. I was interested in him when I learnt of a tattoo he got on his arm at some point but I should tell you just a bit about this man before I talk of his tattoo…

Not considered much of a tennis player when he was much younger, Wawrinka dropped out of school to focus on his game and eventually got a chance to study through Distance Learning via a French Institute. Playing beside his fellow countryman Roger Federer, Wawrinka won his first Olympic gold medal at the Beijing Olympics. Federer has remained a staunch rival but also a good friend of his and his usually one of the few people he talks to on the phone around match time. In 2008, he climbed up to his previous highest ranking of number 8 then married his girlfriend and lost a very crucial match to Djokovic mainly because he had lost his nerve at some point and turned out some inconsistent play. He dropped outside the top 20 and was without a coach for a period.

That’s when the fighter in him emerged: he separated from his wife (he needed to focus on his game) and put his head back in the game. He tried hard to learn from all his failures his philosophy was: ‘Look, the most important is what you do with that situation,’ If you react negative and you go into a mental hole, you won’t progress. You have to accept the positive and negative out of it and try to improve; that’s all you can do.’ By the time he reunited with his wife and daughter, he was a much better player.

There are many lessons to learn from this 28 year old guy who is the latest champion this year. First is the ability to focus and someone once described it has the ability to remove distractions and that’s all there is to it really: if you say you cannot focus it usually means something else is taking your attention – identify what it is and get rid of it if your goal is more important. Wawrinka’s game was more important than his education and even his family so he put them on hold but found other means to bring them back into his life. Some things only make sense when you start to make sense.

Secondly, Wawrinka stayed close to Federer and learnt from him. Many young men may not freely submit to mentorship but they find it easier to stand with people who are in the game at the moment and whom they can learn from. The theories of old men may not hold much relevance to some but the evidence of what someone who is only slightly older than you with a few years is doing is more compelling. Wawrinka was without a coach for about one year but because he was studying Federer and learning as much as he could, he excelled.

Thirdly and most importantly, Wawrinka never quit. Maybe because of the stuff I’ve been through but I’ve never really been able to understand the mindset of people who throw in the towel. Failure is never permanent until you give up which is a very foolish thing to do.

Equally foolish though is to continue to do the same thing over and over again hoping to get a different result and win.

The way to go is the quote from playwright Samuel Beckett which Wawrinka tattooed on his arm:

‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.’

‘Failing better’ means learning from your mistakes and getting closer and closer to your dreams each time you fail. If in failing you learn from your failure then you haven’t really failed at all – you’ve just learnt a better way to succeed.

Have a great week, no matter what!

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Demola Rewaju  is a writer with a background in political history and activism developed during his days as a student in the University of Ado Ekiti. He is also a real estate consultant and he blogs from www.demolarewaju.com

 

 Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

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