Life Lessons from the Gym #5 - Failure Isn't Final
Training isn’t just about looking or feeling better. At the time I’m writing this, I’ve been in the gym consistently for 15 years and coaching for 8. That’s about half my life in the gym. The gym has taught me more about life than any class or course.
I’m going to start sharing some of these lessons learned in blog posts over the next several months. I thought about doing three in one post but as I’ve been writing I think I need more space to fully articulate what I’ve been thinking. So I’m going to do just one lesson per post. Hopefully this will resonate with someone out there.
I’ve written about how to deal with failure previously, but I thought it would be worth mentioning again in the context of the life struggles that we all go through.
When I talk about “failure” in a fitness context, I don’t just mean pushing your muscles until you can’t possibly do another rep. I’m talking about the bigger, ugly failures that we sweep under the rug – when we don’t follow through on our plan, miss a lift that we’ve been wanting to hit, or miss a cutoff time in a race or PT test.
I’ve personally experienced all of the above. I’ve missed lifts and run times, gotten hurt, and not followed through on the plan I said I was going to follow. I’ve been stagnant for years, demotivated, and sometimes left laying on the gym floor wondering if it’s even worth it anymore. Just because I coach for a living doesn’t mean I don’t experience these things too.
If you’ve never failed at something, you’ve never set your sights high enough. No one succeeds at everything they try. Your favorite athlete has failed again and again. Your favorite business coach has probably failed at more business ventures than most have started. And so it goes. We’re all human.
Here’s the good news: failure is the fuel that success often requires. Failure helps us clear our path. If everything is straightforward and easy, how will you learn? You don’t know everything. We need a teacher. Our own failures show us what needs to change, what needs more effort, what needs to be tweaked, and what may not have been the best direction to go in the first place.
If you don’t sometimes fail, how will you grow and develop? We don’t expect a child learning to walk to never fall down. Can you imagine a child trying to stand, falling, and then just crawling for their rest of their life because they failed at their first attempt? Or a parent telling them “well, maybe you just aren’t cut out for walking?” That’s absurd. That’s not how the world works.
The path to success is not a straight one. It’s long and winding, filled with obstacles and setbacks and confusion. If you expect it to be easy, you’re in for a rude awakening. But it makes finally accomplishing that goal so much sweeter.
Failure isn’t final. It’s often the starting line.
If you’re looking for a fitness trainer in the Mt Juliet/Hermitage/Nashville TN area, online fitness training, or just need some advice to get your fitness program started, contact me