Down on your luck? Consider giving yourself room to learn new tricks in fishing and in life

Recently I rediscovered (again!) that the unexpected serendipity of failure is that it can actually be the very seed of your biggest breakthroughs.

I was going through one of those fishing periods where I just wasn’t getting the results I expected. Since we are usually our toughest critics, I began to consider that I was missing an obvious key factor. Wasn’t I following my regular protocols? Or had something changed at the lake? I was doing some soul-searching even though I wasn’t doing bad; just not what I expected. “What was I missing?” haunted me.

These moments challenge your assumptions, mental state and attitudes. I realized that maybe I wasn’t really listening and learning as much as I could. Was I looking for the answers to justify myself? Or was I humbly looking to learn and consider my flaws? (Yeah...got a few!)

I find that I can fall into the trap of thinking I “know” something to be true because I’ve done it that way for a long time — when it really isn’t that productive. It’s easier to stick with what you believe than it is to challenge it and honestly evaluate it. You don’t get to make up your own facts and reality, especially if they don’t work. It can be pride that causes us to go places no sane person would go — I know it can sure keep you from being brutally honest with yourself and what you’re doing. Or change. You can’t learn much when that bridge is up.

I took a special scouting trip alone, just to think and try to figure out how I could get out of this funk and back to par. I spent the day critically looking at everything I was doing and wondering how I got there. This had been going on for a month and I was exhausted from just thinking about it. Maybe I was missing something big? I was ready to learn.

That’s when it happened: I noticed a guy fishing in a boat near me and saw him doing things I had never seen done before. I had heard he was a good angler, but since I was primed and ready to actually see and learn, it became obvious that what I was seeing was a major breakthrough for me. Just like that, everything clicked into place.

It’s amazing that when you’re honestly and humbly really needing to find the answer, it pops up right in front of you. Seems we find and see whatever we’re attuned to. Funny thing: What I got was far beyond what I was looking for.

We all seem to learn when we’re ready to actually hear or see what we’re searching for. It can be all around us, but until we open up our mind and heart, it’s not discernible.

I hate “feeling like a failure, period.” — but every one of my breakthroughs in my fishing and track career came after tough periods of doubt and confusion. Clarity seems to be a product of working through initial chaos and failure. Never giving up.