Dealing with Disappointment

[CalTran]

Originally Posted by MysterE

We decided to turn our efforts to cheering on our fellow Baton Rouge team. It was amazing to watch. We were asked questions by a number of other teams. "Why are you cheering so loudly - you aren't on their team."

A somewhat under answered note on this thread.
Perhaps it's the Regionals I've attended, or maybe it's just that teams think we're too obnoxious to approach but having attempted to win Team Spirit for three years, and winning it the past two years, I can say that we've never been asked this question. Granted, IIRC, we've never cheered for a specific team, but our team will usually pick sides to cheer for during Eliminations, even when we're not participating in those eliminations. I think that cheering for other teams is well within the spirit of FIRST, and something that all teams can do for the remainder of the competition they're at. The teams competing in Elims earned their spot, and you can at least give them a hearty cheer every now and then. You don't hear it when you're driving, but it certainly makes you feel better when you're watching the video later and find out that people still support you.

Originally Posted by Kims Robot

For me, I've found that I go through a cycle. Sometimes it's longer than others, but generally it maps to the same exact cadence. And I think it nearly mirrors your story above.
1. The initial shock of the disappointment sets in...
2. Then the annoyance and outward blame hits my mind ("that team cheated", "they did this to sabotage us", "the judges were biased")...
3. Then the realization and inward blame hits me ("I didn't do enough", "I should have...", "I missed...", "That was stupid of me to think...")...
4. And then I fall back into the moment... the "What can I do right now", which usually lends to picking myself back up and making the situation right, fun, better, etc...
5. And the last stage is the shear determination to do better next year, and my mind will start racing with new ideas, new plans, improvements, changes, fixes, etc.

It's probably because I've been super critical of myself as of late, but I think I usually skip step 2 and jump straight into step 3. I can see why teams would enter step 2, and an argument can be made as to why it's okay for step 2, but I'd like to make a counter argument for that. There was a thread not too long ago (I can't find it now) about how you should never lie to your students about what happened and why it happened, and I feel like the responses to that thread could be applied to this now.

Disappointment happens. Personally, our team had an abysmal showing at our first regional, and only a semi decent showing at our second. At our second, we ended up being selected by the #2 alliance and played 5 tough matches, only to be outed in Semis. It was rough, seeing that last score roll and knowing that my senior year I will not be attending Championships with a merit qualified robot. I hardly remember the finals, hardly remember asking Dean to sign my New Cool; I had simply gone numb from our performance on field. My only hope for the team qualifying for Champions was through the Chairman's Award. Alas, awards come by and I find out that we did not win, and yet again found out that while we did a lot, we did not do nearly enough community work. It stings. And the feeling looms over yourself and your team for quite some time.

But everyone else is right; it does not do well to dwell on the past. Remember all the things that you did well this season and past seasons. For instance, although we had less than great showings at our regionals, we still managed a Gracious Professionalism award at one regional, and a Team Spirit at another. (And the unofficial gratuitous use of the machine shop award at one). Our amazing Public Relations department also pumped out an essay that finally would publicly recognize our mentor with a WFFA, and celebrate him in the same way we celebrate his dedication year to year.

Alas, I digress. It's easy to dwell on your disappointments and continue to wallow in self pity but I know that FIRST Robotics participants are always ready to take a challenge head on. The challenge in this? Find a way to never be in these shoes again. Always strive to do better.

[Carolyn_Grace]

Many of the posts so far have been extremely insightful, and I feel the same way, especially about Kim's. I don't want to repeat what other's have said, so I'll just share two things:

1. During a personal moment of frustration, my mentor (yes, adults have mentors too) and friend of mine told me, "It's hard to see things done wrong, when you have seen it done right before." As simple as that statement was, it made me realize *why* I was frustrated, which led me to being able to better deal with the frustration in the first place.

Often, our brains play tricks on us. We *feel* these emotions and let them get the better of us. This is especially true after three days in the shop until midnight, or three straight days of competition with only 4 hours of sleep each night. When we're tired, our worst enemy is our own mind. Being able to acknowledge that can help.

2. One way that helps with dealing with my own team's disappointment is actually having an abundance of friends on so many teams. A direct example of this is this past weekend's Michigan State Championship event. I had very dear friends on every alliance that played in the semi-finals. No one picks a team because they are friends, we all "play to win," and that often leads to us competing against each other. This turns into a win-win situation. Yes, we all want our individual teams to win, and we will play our heart out to make that happen, but at the end of the day, if my team doesn't win, it is still extremely rewarding to see the tears of joy in my friends' faces as they celebrate with their teams. Friendship takes away some of the sting of losing.

[MysterE]

Originally Posted by Carolyn_Grace

2. One way that helps with dealing with my own team's disappointment is actually having an abundance of friends on so many teams. A direct example of this is this past weekend's Michigan State Championship event. I had very dear friends on every alliance that played in the semi-finals. No one picks a team because they are friends, we all "play to win," and that often leads to us competing against each other. This turns into a win-win situation. Yes, we all want our individual teams to win, and we will play our heart out to make that happen, but at the end of the day, if my team doesn't win, it is still extremely rewarding to see the tears of joy in my friends' faces as they celebrate with their teams. Friendship takes away some of the sting of losing.

I think, out of much of the advice given, that this one hits me the most. As much as I like the words Gracious Professionalism, I think it is more valuable to me when I can demonstrate Gracious Friendship. Professionalism is difficult sometimes, but it seems much easier when the person you are watching get their medal is someone that you know. Every year I develop new connections and greater friendships with FIRSTers - and every year I am surprised to find just how many amazing people there are here.

[KeatonM]

As Kyle Hughes, 2000 WFA winner and my coach for 4 years always says, Fail Faster, Learn More, Focus, and Execute.

Think to yourself, "what can I learn from this, and what can we as a team learn from this?"

Always strive to improve. This season may be over now, so start preparing for NEXT season! Have some fun in the summer (I have a few ideas 27 does, if you're interested... ), do some team building, raise funds.

Don't look at it as a negative, everything is a learning experience.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by KeatonM

As Kyle Hughes, 2000 WFA winner and my coach for 4 years always says, Fail Faster, Learn More, Focus, and Execute

Ah, now I see where this comes from. http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...4&postcount=18

[johnr]

Don't know if the team still does this but back in the day if 910 got into finals and lost we would cheer for the team that beat us. We wanted to lose to champions and that held true for the 3 seasons that i was envolved. We only lost to champions. Well, that's the way i will remember it in my old age.

[Wendy Holladay]

D

Again I say, give me a call

Wendy

[pfreivald]

I embrace the beekeeper's motto:

Next year will be better.

[CLandrum3081]

3081 has had their share of disappointments.

2012: MN Land of 10K Lakes Champions with 525 and 3747.
2013: Last place in Northern Lights.

You heard me. Last place. Not finalists, semifinalists, quarterfinalists, or just not picked in alliance selections.

That hurt. As one of the three captains, I blamed myself. Some blamed themselves or, worse, other people. Rookies were confused because they joined when they heard of the team's success. The school, which honestly hadn't even begun recognizing us until after MN Senator Al Franken visited (months after the regional win...), treated us as the district's best-kept secret again.

We did better at 2013 10K Lakes. Our highest rank was 13th. We finished in the mid-20s. Were we picked? No. But we did better.

To me, the three most important things to remember when dealing with disappointment are:

1. One student does not a whole team make. One captain can try to lead the team, and the other 10, 20, 30, 40+ students can be unresponsive. Likewise, a team's success can not be attributed to one person who worked really hard. If the team is successful, it's not the fault of the one or two slacker kids who didn't do anything. Did they play a part? Yeah. But so did everyone else. You win and lose as a team.

2. Celebrate every success. Celebrate every match won. Every point scored. At Northern Lights, we celebrated every time our robot moved! And we really celebrated when our friends 525 won the regional (and 10K a few weeks later. Moral of the story: 525 is beast). Should winning a match be put on the same level as winning a regional or making it to eliminations? No. That would be failure to accept reality. But the small successes should still be celebrated.

3. Chalk it up to experience. Oftentimes, when something doesn't work, you can pinpoint why right away: "Well, that's the last time we wait until week 4 to do this part." "Well, we're certainly coming up with a new design process last year." "All the problems were programming/electrical/mechanical/etc this year. Let's spend more time on it next year." "Let's finish the robot earlier so we can have drive practice." If you don't correct issues because they don't affect you negatively until the absolute worst minute (which - come on, it's robotics, of course that's how it's going to happen), you don't learn until you have to learn the hard way.

And sometimes, it's about luck. In Northern Lights, the pit crew would fix one thing and another thing would break. Somehow, they even managed to break the drivetrain (don't ask...). Does that say something about the structural integrity of our robot? Yeah. But is it true that some robots are flimsy but just don't happen to be rammed into the wall? Definitely.

Disappointment stinks. But what stinks worse is not being able to learn from it, or not using the experience to make anything better, or completely looking on the experience as negative. Some team members of 3081 have decided that because of our performance at Northern Lights, the whole season sucked. Not true. There are highs and lows, but keep this in mind:

It's robotics. Win or lose, it'll pay off in the long run.

[Xavbro]

Thank you so much for this post. I plan to share this with the team at our next meeting.

This year was a very disappointing year for the team. For the seniors, they were disappointed the most because it was their second year and most of them will be going away to school putting them out of contact with the team for the next few years. I personally was disappointed not by the robot's performance but by seeing the disappointment on some of the student's faces. This is my second year as a mentor and second year of not making eliminations or winning an award. My previous experience was with FRC 2587 the DiscoBots and every year, they seem to be good enough to make eliminations at every event they attend. Last yea, being the TigerBytes' rookie year, we focused more on Rookie All-Star instead of robot performance so not making eliminations wasn't a goal high on our list. This year, we decided to focus on one aspect of the game and attempt to do it very well. Needless to say, that didn't work in our favor and unfortunately the team suffered.

Since we're a young team, I plan to build on these experiences to grow the team and better prepare them for next year. I have a rule that we don't refer to anything as mistakes but instead a learning experience after the fact. This year we decided to work on rebuilding the robot and competing at some off season events not as a "second chance" or a "what-could-have-been" but as chance for the students to learn new ideas and techniques for the next build season.

I'm sure 3337 implements all of these techniques already and the TigerBytes look up to you guys!! You've always been the role model for the teams in the Baton Rouge area and we enjoy working with you guys every year. We were routing for you guys and 3753 throughout the Bayou Regional and we shared the disappointment with you guys at the end of the regional.

[JamesCH95]

I have found that asking the question: "What do you think we could do better next season?" prompts a good, positive, discussion about improvements we can make and re-focuses everyone on next year. The optimism and anticipation of being better the following year takes over and the attitudes change.

We too cheer for teams that we know personally, and that helps.

I also agree that students take their cues from coaches, even if they don't realize it. It was a tough transition to go from being a student to a coach in that regard. If coaches can stay focused on the positive aspects of a season the students will too.

FWIW this year was the first in 4 years at least that we've walked across the field.

[J_Miles]

I, and the rest of the EngiNERDs, especially those around in '08 and '09, can certainly relate to this sort of dramatic turnaround from one season to the next.

2337's rookie season was before I was in high school and before I'd ever heard of FIRST or knew that our high school robotics team. Some might say that, in 2008, 2337 came out with a splash. Some of my alumni friends had great memories of the robot that became known as "Das Boot." To put it into perspective - the NERDs won multiple rookie awards and had strong showings at their regionals and qualified for Championship, where they finished qualifications ranked #2 on the Curie Division and were eliminated in the semifinals by the eventual World Championship Finalists. Certainly, this success it not unprecedented - teams have gone further in their rookie seasons, but it seems to have been rather exceptional for those who experienced it.

When I joined the team in 2009, I heard ALL the stories of the 2008 successes. I didn't really know what to expect, but I was a freshman with zero prior FIRST experience. What I most certainly DIDN'T expect was the year we had in '09. After (somehow) advancing to the semifinals at Kettering, we never hit .500 at any of our subsequent competitions, never got picked, and went to the Michigan State Championship mostly on the luck of the draw.

It was humbling. It was disappointing. It was also an enormous learning experience for my team, and particularly my class. When we weren't scouting (even though we had next to no hope of getting picked, much less PICKING, scouting was still heavily emphasized. And if your first experience scouting was in 2009 like mine was...well...I don't envy you. There were LOTS of reasons that Lunacy was generally not an enjoyable game), we were team building. Whether the young students were in the pits working on the nearly hopeless robot or with other teams playing games and forming friendships, that year instilled a LOT of the values of FIRST into me, and I think that by saying that I can safely speak for my peers.

It wasn't fun to be so unsuccessful, but seeing robots like 67's, 217's, 469's, and 70 & 494's (And their insanely successful autonomous) was inspirational. A big question I asked myself was: "What's stopping us from being that good?" Personally, it was what motivated me to do everything I could to improve our team - on the field or off. My experiences with teams like RUSH off the field helped me understand how multi-dimensional FIRST and FRC are, and watching the incredible performances of Michigan's elite teams on the field inspired me to be a better designer and mechanical team member.

As much as it may have stunk to watch the robot flame out nearly every match, I don't think that the four Michigan District Wins and one District Chairman's Award Win would have happened if we hadn't faced the same sort of demoralizing turnaround that we saw in 2009. It taught me that FIRST is about more than Robots. It taught me that if you ever think you're "done" improving, you're dead wrong. It taught me how to set goals. I may have learned more in the year I remember least (and try to avoid remembering) than I learned in three other years on the team, and probably made those three other years more successful, to boot.

TL;DR:
Humility is good. Disappointment breeds humility if you have the right attitude. Disappointment can also help build the right attitude.

[AZNkommander]

Coming from a pretty successful 2013 season, it was particularly heartbreaking for 216 to lose to 1334, 4334, 4633, and 4591 (the back-up) in the Western Canadian FRC Regional. Because we were 4001's first pick, we were one Wildcard slot away from going to Worlds!!

Being a captain and senior of 216, it's fairly depressing to think that my four years of FRC are done now. I've come to appreciate all the experience and memories I've gained through the RoboDawgs, though. You have to be able to take the good memories and treasure them!!!

Holding my head high and settling down back at home, I'll be cheering on the other teams at Worlds as they compete to Einstein!!