During my basketball practices, I always shoot, pass and dribble well, but when it comes to games, the pressure gets to me and makes me nervous. I might have an open shot and instead of shooting, I’ll hesitate and pass the ball to one of my teammates. I’ve been improving, but sometimes, when a player comes up to me to play defense, I’ll still just pick up my dribble. When someone passes me the ball to shoot, something inside me says “You might miss!” That voice isn’t there during practice. Shutting out this voice is important because, while it does prevent me the embarrassment of missing a shot, it’s also preventing me from making a shot.

The voice that protects me from embarrassment speaks up in the classroom too. When my teacher asks a question and calls on me, that same voice inside of me tells me to say something like “I don’t know,” even when I think I know the answer. “I don’t know” is less embarrassing than getting the wrong answer, because my classmates might just think that I wasn’t paying attention, or that I knew the answer but didn’t want to risk getting it wrong. But the opposite happens when teachers grade homework. If you try but get the wrong answer, you might still get a point, but if you just write “I don’t know” or “?” you won’t get any points. I think that this is a positive aspect of tests because they encourage students to try even when they don’t know the answer.

It should be our teacher’s and our parents’ job to teach us to not fear failure. Everyone learns from their mistakes. Sometimes, I can be a perfectionist and get mad when I make a mistake. Whenever I shoot hoops and miss a shot, I might say “Argh,” but my parents always tell me to not get upset for making a mistake. I would like to hear that kind of encouragement from more adults besides my parents. If kids were constantly reminded by parents, teachers and everybody else to not fear failure, they might learn to quiet that voice or even develop a new voice that says, “I don’t care if I make a mistake.”

In Game 3 of the NBA Finals Stephen Curry started out 1-for-14 from the field, including 0-for-9 from the three-point range. If I were playing that game, I would have stopped shooting and given up because of the voice. Steph’s doubting voice must be very quiet for him to have kept on shooting. He only finished the game 3-for-16, but he scored 7 of his 11 points in the final three minutes, including making an important three-pointer. Even though Steph’s performance was being broadcast to millions of people, he kept shooting, unafraid to fail. I think our parents and teachers should teach us to have Steph’s confidence.