NATALIE BURTON: We have done a terrible job of preparing our Olympic athletes for moments of failure

“I feel like a failure right now.”

These raw, gut-wrenching words were spoken by dual Olympian boxer Harry Garside after his first-round defeat on his hunt to add an Olympic gold medal to his Tokyo bronze.

As the Paris Olympic Games continue, he will not be the only athlete to think these words.

With the very best of the best competing against each other, not everyone’s dreams will be realised. Many athletes will return home riding emotional rollercoasters of shame, failure and low self-worth.

And we have done a terrible job at preparing our athletes for these moments.

At the 2016 Rio Olympics, I was one of these athletes.

My Olympic basketball dream turned into a nightmare in a two-point quarter-final shock exit at the hands of Serbia, a team we had been beaten by 20 points only 10 days earlier in a practice game.

We went to Rio carrying the rich history of the Opals’ legacy proudly, with past teams winning a medal at every Olympics they’d competed in.

I left feeling like I’d let down not only the Australian basketball community but the entire country.

It would take me years to be able to call myself an Olympian without wincing in shame.

Even longer to be ready to tell my story. To explain to people that no, I never won a medal. Yes, I was part of the team that was called a disaster for women’s basketball. Yes, I only went to one Olympics because following Rio I would never be invited back to a training camp with the team I’d been proud to be a part of for the past four years.

I was extremely ill-equipped to deal with the aftermath of this experience.

With self-doubt high and confidence low, the crippling feeling of shame and lack of belief in myself and my abilities quickly permeated into my performance on the court.

No matter how hard I worked, I couldn’t find the answer to my pain and struggles in the gym getting stronger, or on the court working on my shot. I was dealing with things that had less to do with my physical skills and much more to do with my mindset, and I had never trained my mind like I had my body.

How did I turn the volume of my self-doubts down?

How did I find that magical potion of confidence when it seemed to have deserted me?

What did it matter how many shots I could make in practice if when it came time to play I couldn’t even allow myself to shoot for fear of missing?

These skills certainly had never been a part of any training plan I’d been involved in.

And herein lies the problem with the way we do sport across all levels.

We have focused so single-mindedly on the physical side of sport, that we’ve failed to provide our athletes with the support and tools required to navigate the ups and downs that come with playing sport and pursuing personal excellence.

The answers to my questions above are found in mindset skills training and holistic athlete wellbeing support.

We need to understand and comprehend the power our thoughts, emotions, focus and perception have on everything we do in life, let alone on the playing field. We need structures, tools and practices in place to use our mindsets to our advantage.

Failing is a part of sport. Harry and other Olympians in Paris are powerfully showing us that. We accept that goals won’t be achieved, that we will make mistakes, and that we will be challenged when we go for something we want.

How we approach these challenges and our perception of them in the aftermath greatly impacts our performance, our experience, and our well-being.

It is time to train our minds like we do our bodies. It is time that mindset training becomes a normal part of being an athlete. It is time that sporting organisations and coaches lead the way by integrating this into their culture and athletic programs.

In doing so we can help create healthy, happy, well-rounded individuals who perform better not only on the playing field but in every area of their lives.

Natalie Burton is an Olympian and mindset consultant.