Embracing Failure: How Setbacks Make You Better

In this episode of In Deep with Olivia Smoliga, Olivia takes listeners inside her first long course meet back since Olympic Trials 2024 and unpacks one of the deepest lessons she’s living right now: when you stop attaching your worth to outcomes, you unlock the freedom to actually race, learn, and grow. At the Westmont Tier Pro Series, she came in with nerves, uncertainty, a new coach, and a fresh training environment — but also with a new lens: every race is an opportunity to gain something.

She shares how coach Coley Stickles helped her release expectations and treat the meet as a benchmark, not a verdict. That shift turned pressure into possibility. Instead of calling a race “bad,” she began asking better questions: What did this teach me? What can I take back into training? How can I use this as feedback?

The episode also explores what it means to become a “master of your craft” — someone who falls in love with reps, setbacks, discomfort, and the ongoing process of refinement. Olivia talks about the danger of boxing yourself into certainty, why trying new events and new skills matters, and how staying present after a tough first swim can completely change the direction of a meet. She points to athletes like Summer McIntosh as examples of what becomes possible when you take things one race at a time and refuse to let one result define the rest of the story.

You’ll also hear the affirmations Olivia used to prime herself each day of the meet — “I am courageous. I am brave. I am present.” — and her closing journal prompt inviting listeners to write three affirmations they can repeat all week. This episode is for any swimmer who’s ever felt crushed by a result, afraid to try something new, or stuck believing that one setback means the whole meet is lost. The core message: if you can treat failure as feedback, you can keep evolving.

Listen to the episode below!