In sport, failure is inevitable, but how you respond to it is a choice. After being cut from both her WNBA team and the Australian national squad in the same year, VIS Mentor and Minnesota Lynx forward Alanna Smith was forced to confront doubt head-on and decide whether disappointment would define her or drive her forward. What followed became a masterclass in choosing to get better, not bitter.

Get Better, Not Bitter

In 2022, Smith was 10 games into a season with the Indiana Fever. She had started several games and felt confident in how she was contributing. Then, she was called into a meeting with the general manager and coach and was told the organization was “going in a different direction.” She was cut from the team. It was her fourth year in the WNBA—long enough to feel established, and suddenly, she was without a team. 

Just a few months later, another blow followed: she was cut from the Australian national team ahead of the World Cup, which was set to take place in Australia. After competing at the Tokyo Olympics, missing that roster felt deeply personal. Two major setbacks within months forced her to confront the kind of doubt that can quietly take root. 

“I had this dream of playing in the WNBA and it was taken away from me and I was really sad and disappointed. It was really, really hard,” Smith said. “It felt like a lot of my fears were confirmed. You start thinking ‘maybe I’m not good enough.’”

As she navigated those moments, Smith began to see failure as information rather than confirmation of inadequacy—not a verdict, but feedback. Adopting a “get better, not bitter” mindset, she shifted from dwelling on disappointment to using it as fuel for growth.

“When I got a chance to step back from those moments, it really gave me an opportunity to look at it as a chance to learn and take away key learning moments from those experiences so I could improve and be not only a better basketball player but just a better person in general,” Smith said. 

“When I got a chance to step back from those moments, it really gave me an opportunity to look at it as a chance to learn and take away key learning moments from those experiences so I could improve and be not only a better basketball player but just a better person in general.”

VIS Mentor Alanna Smith

Ask for the Hard Truth

After being cut, Smith did something that requires both vulnerability and courage: she went back and asked why. She sought clarity from coaches about the specific reasons behind the decisions and what she needed to improve. One of the most impactful critiques came from her Australia National Team coaches and centered on her body language. 

“I am a very expressive person. I wear a lot of my emotion on my face. What I'm feeling, you can absolutely tell,” Smith said. “So that type of feedback was really hard to hear because it felt like I needed to change who I was and I found it really hard to take that message. But I think it was really helpful to hear and it also helped me kind of receive feedback in a more positive way.”

With time, Smith recognized that the feedback was not a character attack; it was a performance insight. She worked with a sports psychologist to develop strategies for emotional regulation in high-pressure moments and leaned on veteran teammates for advice about leadership presence. What initially felt uncomfortable became one of the most transformative growth areas of her career.

“I spoke to a lot of my teammates who were leaders on my team, to help me and just to let them know what I was going through and get some of their advice,” Smith said. “They gave me their experiences and how they worked through a lot of their emotions. It really helped me adopt new strategies and be a better person, a better teammate, a better player, and manage my emotions a lot better.”

Shrinking Setbacks Through Sharing 

While the work of improvement is internal, Smith emphasized that resilience is rarely built alone. Throughout her career, she has leaned heavily on a trusted support system—teammates, mentors, and especially her dad, who also played professional basketball. When emotions run high after a tough performance, he offers perspective that steadies her. If she spirals into believing a bad game defines her, he reminds her it’s one game in a long season, not a measure of her worth.

“Having someone who can plant me back in reality is so helpful because I think sometimes our emotions can take us away into different places,” Smith said. “I'm very thankful for him. He's just been there since day one. So, he's seen it all and I feel very safe going to him and talking about the feelings that I have when I'm not getting the outcome that I want.”

Smith believes that sharing setbacks ultimately shrinks them. When failure lives only in your head, it can grow into something overwhelming. Speaking it out loud, hearing a different perspective, and allowing others to ground you can dramatically shift the weight you carry. 

“Being able to share the load of your failures makes it so much easier for you to bounce back,” Smith said. “I think when you're successful as well, having a support group that helped you get to that point of success just makes it so much sweeter because you get to share that bounty of success that you had and it makes your journey so worthwhile knowing that you can celebrate it with others who have been backing you the whole way.”

“I think when you're successful as well, having a support group that helped you get to that point of success just makes it so much sweeter because you get to share that bounty of success that you had and it makes your journey so worthwhile knowing that you can celebrate it with others who have been backing you the whole way.”

VIS Mentor Alanna Smith

Controlling the Controllable 

Smith said she is a perfectionist and a natural negative self-talker. Even after years in the WNBA and international competition, her first instinct after a mistake can be self-critical. The difference now is not that the thoughts have disappeared, but that she has changed her relationship with them.

Instead of trying to suppress negative thoughts, something she believes is nearly impossible in the middle of competition, she observes them. 

“Something that's been really helpful for me is viewing those thoughts as neutral. Just observing, ‘hey, I've had that thought. Let's move on,’” Smith said. “So like, ‘hey, I made that pass. Oh, missed that shot. Nothing else.’ You just observe what's going on around you with no attachments to it, which can be really helpful in removing the negative side of things.”

Outside of games, she reinforces a healthier mindset by intentionally cataloging what went well in practice. Building the habit of noticing strengths helps counterbalance her perfectionist tendencies.

Perseverance, in Smith’s view, is more about emotional regulation than constant positivity—not getting too high in success or too low in failure, and repeatedly returning to equilibrium. Controlling what you can, such as effort, preparation, and response, creates stability even when outcomes fluctuate.

“To bring yourself back to equilibrium, to that place of neutrality, you have to be willing to hold yourself accountable,” Smith said. “That means taking time for honest self-reflection, and being open to feedback in both the highs and the lows. There is always something to learn, whether the moment feels positive or negative. If you can own your actions and grow from every experience, you won’t just become a better athlete, you’ll become a better person.”

Failure as a Circuit Breaker 

 When it comes to goal setting, Smith sees failure as a moment of reflection rather than a final judgment. Instead of internalizing setbacks as proof she isn’t capable, she separates her identity from the outcome.

“Looking at failure in the space of goal setting and seeing it more as a circuit breaker, a point of reflection, starts with changing your narrative if things don't go your way,” Smith said. “So going from ‘I failed, I'm not good enough’ to something more along the lines of ‘it didn't work out this time. What can I do to change it? And how can I change my plans or my steps to get to that goal?’”

Sometimes that adjustment involves refining daily habits. Other times, it means reassessing whether a goal is realistic given available resources and boundaries. Smith emphasizes the importance of understanding personal limitations to avoid burnout and recommends working with a trusted mentor or coach when mapping out goals.  

“Burnout is an indicator that you've maybe gone past your limitations or you've overstepped your own boundaries and you need to take a step back,” Smith said. “One way that you can stop that from happening is when you're setting your goals, doing it with a person that you really trust can help you figure out steps to take and maybe help you identify what your limitations might be if you're unsure of what they are.”

“To bring yourself back to equilibrium, to that place of neutrality, you have to be willing to hold yourself accountable.”

VIS Mentor Alanna Smtih

Turning Setbacks into Slingshots 

Smith’s career has never followed a straight line. She briefly quit basketball at six because boys wouldn’t pass her the ball and didn’t return seriously until she was 13. It wasn’t until she met Australian legend Lauren Jackson that she began to believe the WNBA could be more than a distant dream. 

Even then, the journey was marked by performance anxiety in college, limited minutes early in her professional career, and the constant recalibration that comes with competing at the highest level. It was in these challenging moments her concept of turning setbacks into slingshots was born. 

“Failures do not define you, they define what you do moving forward,” Smith said. “Start looking at your setbacks and your failures as a potential slingshot. And sometimes you do have to kind of pull back a little bit to release yourself forward. And I think it's a really good way to reframe how you look at failure and how you approach the bounce back from a failure.”

No moment illustrates her “slingshot” philosophy more clearly than what happened in 2022.

After being cut by the Indiana Fever, Smith was told one of the reasons she was cut was her defense needed to improve. She could have internalized that as a ceiling, but she instead treated it as a blueprint. She studied film, committed to defensive discipline, and leaned into the uncomfortable work of reshaping a part of her game that had been exposed. 

The cut, which initially felt like rejection, became a redirection. The pullback created tension. And in time, that tension translated into force: this past season, Smith won Co-Defensive Player of the Year. The very weakness that once contributed to losing a roster spot became one of her defining strengths. What looked like a setback was, in hindsight, the clearest example of the slingshot at work.

That same principle played out on a team level when she experienced one of the most painful losses of her career: falling short in the 2024 WNBA Finals. The proximity to a championship made the defeat sting even more sharply, as if something had been within reach before being pulled away. 

“I think one of the first things I did was let myself feel really sad for a little bit because it felt really hard to just move on,” Smith said. “I think letting myself feel that disappointment really helped me go into that next phase of getting better and not staying bitter. So when you let yourself feel that anger instead of just hiding those emotions away, it really helps you move on to the next phase of responding to it, which is ‘how do I change the outcome?’”

The following season, the Minnesota Lynx opened the season 9-0, tying a record for consecutive wins to start the year. The experience sharpened their focus, strengthened their trust in one another, and deepened their understanding of what it truly takes to compete at that level.

For Smith, that is the essence of the slingshot. The pullback is uncomfortable. It requires humility, reflection, and a willingness to confront weaknesses without letting them define you. But without that tension, there is no forward force. Setbacks are not signals to abandon the journey; they are preparation for the next launch. 

Failure, Smith believes, is an invitation to reframe setbacks as lessons, seek honest feedback and steady support, and confront weaknesses with curiosity instead of shame. When you choose to get better instead of bitter, every disappointment becomes stored momentum, a pullback that can ultimately slingshot you further than you thought possible.