An Open Letter About Failure

Yesterday, I had a lightbulb moment about failure.

For most of our lives, we view failure as something we need to avoid.

Back in school, you were terrified to bring home an F on the report card.

Failure was seen as if you are not good enough, you aren't trying hard enough, or you just don't care about doing well.

As I have gotten older, I have a new relationship with failing.

I recently started playing ice hockey at 32 years old.

Now, I grew up around the sport.

I have many family members who played, and some of the best memories I have growing up with them include playing on the outdoor rink my uncle would build in their backyard.

Not only that, we had a family from Michigan, and two families from Canada as neighbors growing up.

Even though I was around the sport, and played with friends and family, I never did any organized ice hockey, until now.

I have been playing for about a month now, and even though I have some experience, I am still falling down, sliding on the ice, and missing pucks more than I would like to admit.

These first few months have taught me one big lesson about failure.

In the beginning, failure is going to happen.

You can't avoid it, but what you can avoid, has letting the failure get the best of you.

As an adult, I look at failure as not something negative, but something that is necessary to succeed.

Failure shows you what you need to work on, it shows you the mistakes that you made, and without it, you will never know how to improve.

The same mental framework applies to health and fitness as well.

If you "failed" on your diet this week, don't just cry and whine about it.

Reflect on what caused you to "fail."

Did you forget to plan ahead, did you not have enough food prepped?

Say you attempt to walk for 30 minutes, but you felt out of breath at the 15 minute mark.

Rather than saying you will never be in shape, now you know that you should do more walks at 15 minute and slowly build up from there.

Stop looking at failure as a reason to give up or quit.

Whether you like it or not, failure is part of journey.

Your journey will be much more successful if you look at failure as a lesson from this point on.