How to bounce back after a failure?

Failure is never what you expect. We always have specific objectives, goals to achieve, the desire to succeed... But failure can happen quickly, and in different ways.
You have to know how to face it and manage it correctly so as not to let it take control of what happens next.

During my participation in the 2022 Dakar, my engine unfortunately broke on the second day, when we had only just started this long race. A failure which cost us dearly, since it was impossible to repair this breakdown and start competing again. Obviously, our hopes for this rally were far from this reality. We were there to win. And suddenly, everything stopped... We had to bounce back, manage this situation, get back on track for the future.

But before bouncing back, whatever the way, you must first accept.
Accept that everything does not always depend on us, even if we have given our all. Accept that the victory and the results will not be for this year and that we have just “wasted” a year of work, in a way…
I had to apply resilience, a word I knew following my reconstruction following my accident. Accept that things happen this way.
At the time, it was obviously difficult, but the landscape in which we found ourselves “beautified” things a little.
The hardest part was leaving the race, getting on the plane, returning home. I saw the others staying in the race, and for an athlete with a competitive spirit, morale takes a hit.
But I'm a man like any other, and it's important to take the time to digest what happened. We have the right not to be well. The main thing is to ask yourself when you are ready to think about it and approach this failure in a positive way.

Sometimes we perform and we lose quality, monotony sets in, we no longer really question ourselves. And sometimes, suddenly falling low can allow us to question a lot of things, get back up and do better later. Performance is a constant search for improvement, so questioning is necessary.
For me, my only obsession was to find out where the problem was coming from. Analyze together, with the team, so as not to repeat this experience at the next Dakar but also so that the mechanics feel free and do not feel guilty.
Today, we are happy because we found the cause, the team is relieved, and it is important to bounce back afterwards. Because this failure was experienced by the entire team and not only by my co-driver and myself. This notion of rebound was important to all of us.

This experience that we experienced as an immediate failure will ultimately make us emerge stronger.
For me, rebounding is a process of acceptance that must be approached with patience, then looking for solutions to learn the best lessons and always improve afterwards.