Make Failure Your Teacher...NOT Your Undertaker!

jonesdav254

About 8 weeks ago, I suffered what many of my MFP friends witnessed through my posts...a serious and lingering back injury.

Over the weeks that followed, I was depressed and disappointed as I watched what I thought was my fitness success from the previous 18 months slip away. In short, I was contemplating the idea of my hard work turning in FAILURE. It was difficult to move. I lay on my back, my back and legs would ache. I would lie on my side, my calf would go numb. Lying on my stomach put more pressure on the very area that was injured. Oh…and the occurrence of a sneeze or a cough….sent a pain into my left glut and hamstring that felt like a BOLT OF LIGHTNING. Yes, there were a few times when I was telling myself that this event…this “failure” would spell the end my fitness journey.

Then I slapped the crap out of whoever it was inside my head that was thinking those things. Still, the experience was one that made me wonder about how I (perhaps you too) face what we perceive as “failure”.

What makes me (us) so afraid of failure? Perhaps, it’s worry about what people think of me (you). “Ewwww”……”what will THEY say?” I (we) ask. Too often, is it that I (we) assume that because I (you) made a mistake!

I am (we are) failures and therefore forever disgraced?

POPPYCOCK! What a ridiculous assumption! How many people are completely successful in every department and area of their life? Let me give you the answer. (Lean in close…I have to whisper this LOUDLY in your ear). It’s LESS THAN ZERO!

A failure means I have (you’ve) put forth some effort. That’s good. Failure gives me (you) an opportunity to learn a better way to do things. HELLO!!!!....News Flash!.....that’s a positive. A failure teaches me (you) something and adds to my (your) experience. That’s very helpful. Failure may define an event…..but it NEVER will define me (or you) as a person! Failure may define my (your) attitude….but never my (your) complete outcome. Is a failed event a temporary inconvenience? Sure. Can a failed attitude be a stepping-stone? Quite often this is true. (As was the case with my back injury).

My (your) response to failure determines how helpful it can be. My back injury and the failed events around it helped me learn to:

- Listen better to the signals my body is telling me

- Take my rehabilitation seriously (I only have this ONE body...so I need to set challenging goals….but be realistic!)

- Better appreciate the goals I’m hitting as I work myself back towards improved fitness. (Perhaps I was less then fully aware last time around….silly me!)

- DO NOT look down….don’t EVER look down! LOOK UP!