Motivation Monday: Reaching Failure
By show of hands (and I want them raised high because I can see you. Yes I can.), how many of you are afraid to fail? How many of you that are afraid to fail, then avoid things BECAUSE you are afraid you’ll fail? Or give yourself a hard time for failing?
It really hurts my heart and can make me a tiny bit angry to see some of you get so down on yourself for having a bad week. For failing for that week. I admit that I can sometimes let that fear take control of me, but really, why do we do that? Why do we let something like THAT have so much control over us?
Well, what IF we started looking at failure just a little bit differently? Let me explain…
In multiple strength training videos the trainers talk about “reaching failure” with each set. They want your last three reps in each set to be almost impossible to do, which is what they call “reaching failure”. The reason that you WANT to reach failure is because by doing that, you build new muscle. By building new muscle, you get stronger.
Okay, so did you catch that? By failing, you get stronger.
Let’s think about this for a second, shall we?
On those weeks that you think that you’ve failed, if you look back, usually can’t you figure out what happened to cause that fail? (Oh, I see some nodding heads through the computer there.)Â Okay, so if you can figure out what happened, don’t you then know what not to do in the coming week?
Obviously there are some differences between my strength training example and real life. In strength training you want to reach failure every time. In life, you don’t. But, here is my point: “failing” is not the end of the world. Failure can and should be used as a learning tool. Learning from our “failures” helps us to reach success. (I believe someone smart like Jillian Michaels said something like that.)
So, the next time you step on those scales and you’re not happy with the result, instead of being mad at yourself or getting down at having a bad week, I want you to get a pad and pen out. Then, I want you to write down everything you did that week and include things that you ate. Once you figure out “what went wrong”, I want you to promise yourself you’re not going to make that same decision this week. Then do it. Or not do it. Whatever, you know what I mean. Instead of letting the failure control you, YOU control the failure. Let the power be in YOUR hands.
If you do that, then, my friends, you have “reached failure” and you will build “new muscle” and you will get stronger which will lead to success.
