The Fear of Failure

So I've been pushing myself since late May. Everyone reaches their breaking point; that point where one more step just can't be taken; or it's all become too hard. We try to aim higher, push harder, lift heavier, move faster...and, yet, on this fabled day, we are found wanting.

What then? What happens? For me, I began by trying to rationalize the failure: lack of sleep, ate a little worse this week, etc, etc. Then our demons come along and "help": you're not cut out for this; maybe the weight you're losing isn't fat but muscle, maybe that success the other day was just a fluke...I mean how could it not be?

What becomes of us when we fail our own expectations? This is a question I have wrestled with on and off through my training. I especially wrestled with it Friday as that was the first time I ever walked out on a crossfit workout. It just seemed too hard; too demanding; and I just didn't have it in me.

I called Dani quite literally in tears. Fear hit me in a massive wave. What if this is just the beginning of a long string of failures? What if my successes were just flukes? What if I regress?

The mind is simultaneously our greatest asset and our greatest enemy. How often does this paranoid line of thinking hit me elsewhere in my life? Holy crap, this stuff in the milk carton might not be milk! This bottled water really isn't bottled water!

Yea...I'm odd, but not even I do that.

This is something everyone probably deals with in their own way. For me...well...since I'm being so melodramatic anyway, why not hollywoodize it? I think back to Alfred asking Bruce Wayne "Why do we fall down"? Bruce Wayne responds "so we can get back up again". So that's where I'm coming from. Failure is only your enemy when you make it final. Every failure before that is fuel. Given my circumstances, I would most certainly rather experience my failures now before this race.

It's interesting that I also don't give myself enough credit. I imagine most of us don't. On Tuesday I set a personal best running record of 33 minutes and 42 seconds of continuous running. I did 2 laps around my neighborhood running circuit. Six weeks ago I didn't think that was something I was capable of. On Thursday, I did my first public running event. It was a 2 mile run in Fondren. Did I run the whole way? No. But I got out and I did it. I ended up still pacing pretty well. Yea for Runtastic.

I've seen steady and consistent gains over my 6+ weeks of training. The law of averages probably had a failure coming my way any day now. And so I count myself blessed that it came.

It's caused me to think about this and my training a lot. I've, of course, considered what I might have done differently. My problem on Friday was an all of nothing mindset. There were specific reps for each exercise and a total number of sets. I couldn't do them. I kept looking at how much further I had to go and it was mentally exhausting. Even so...I could have rid myself of this all or nothing thinking and scaled the workout. If I really can't do x number of reps, then lets pick a number for this set that I can do. If I only do 1, then that's 1 more than 0.

The bottom line here is that failure will happen. There will be set backs. Things might not go as planned. Do not let failure be your end. You are capable of more than you know. Believe in yourself. Don't worry about tomorrow or the next mile. Just focus on the very next step and keep putting one foot in front of the other.