In Praise of Failure: The Value of Overcoming Mistakes in Sports and in Life

Many of our greatest athletes, scientists, and entertainers failed repeatedly throughout their careers, yet they refused to allow past mistakes stop them from striving for future success. Instead, they turned those so-called failures into opportunities to learn, improve, and eventually earn the achievements they are celebrated for today. Why, then, is failure considered negative in our society? Perhaps failure is not, in fact, something to be avoided, but something to be encouraged.

In Praise of Failure: The Value of Overcoming Mistakes in Sports and in Life aims to change the way our society defines and perceives what is commonly called “failure.” Mark H. Anshel provides a refreshing, new perspective on how we can embrace failure as part of the process of achieving and succeeding at the highest level. Anshel uses sports psychology in a grounded, easy-to-read manner to examine failure in sports settings, revealing that not only is failure inevitable in an imperfect world, it is essential. He addresses such issues as how to properly promote failure in sport and exercise settings, how errors lead to improvement, ways to constructively cope with failure, and how to help child athletes fail “safely.” In the process, Anshel shows that the highest-performing athletes have one characteristic in common—they learned and improved from apparent setbacks.

In Praise of Failure shares stories of professional athletes, business professionals, scholars, and famous inventors who failed repeatedly before attaining their dreams, revealing the integral role failure plays in success. Offering a fresh and exciting take on how to approach the failures we face in life, this bookwill be invaluable for athletes, coaches, exercise and fitness trainers, dieticians, students, and even for the corporate world.

Mark H. Anshel, PhD, is professor emeritus at Middle Tennessee State University. He has consulted with youth and professional sports teams, and has applied performance psychology concepts in medical, law enforcement, and corporate settings. Dr. Anshel is the author of numerous books, including Sport Psychology: From Theory to Practice (Fifth Edition), Aerobics for Fitness (Fifth Edition), and Applied Health Fitness Psychology, as well as the editor of the Dictionary of Sport and Exercise Sciences. Dr. Anshel has written and published over 140 articles in scientific journals and 22 book chapters in areas of sport and exercise psychology. He is a former college baseball athlete.

Mark H. Anshel is professor emeritus at Middle Tennessee State University. He has consulted with youth and professional sports teams and has applied performance psychology concepts in medical, law enforcement, sport, and corporate settings. Dr. Anshel is the editor of Dictionary of Sport and Exercise Sciences and the author of over 140 research articles and numerous books, including Sport Psychology: From Theory to Practice, Fifth Edition and Applied Health Fitness Psychology.