Think about what you’re doing right now…
Are you failing and close to giving up?
Or worried about failing and it’s holding you back?
I remember when growing up school exams were positioned as a 1-time opportunity if you failed you could re-sit but it was frowned upon.
You came out of school and went for a job interview, if you didn’t get it you felt you must not be good enough.
Now looking back I think it’s crazy!
You spend a couple of years learning, for it then to be defined all within an hour exam?
If I failed that day, should that be it?
If I got a C, should I not strive for an A?
Do you think professional athletes got an A in their first race?
Or more likely a C,D, or an E and they went away, practice, ran 100’s more times until they nailed that A race?
“Practice makes perfect!”
We’ve all heard that saying, but why do we only apply it to certain things?
Should I have applied that to my school exams and redone them as many times as I needed to get an A*?
I remember queuing up outside the gym hall, pencil case in hand, checking over and over that I had everything with me I’d need. Nerves creeping in, knowing what was waiting on the other side of the door. Split between wanting to be let in and happily stood outside for hours to put the task off. Walking in wasn’t any better, table after table lined up, teachers dotted about telling you to be silent, this was it, choose a table and what I did in that next hour was going to shape the rest of my life. Or so I thought!
The truth! None of that matters in my life right now, and if it did, I could still go back and retake any of those exams!
And the nerves I felt, they’d eventually go away, as things do when they become second nature to us, they become a lot easier.
Roads don’t change, traffic doesn’t change, but you end up on autopilot with driving after a number of years.
Apply this to your life right now…
I asked you earlier are you failing and close to giving up?
Now ask yourself that question again…
Are you really failing, or do you just need to keep practising?
What is failure?
If you’re better than last week, even by a fraction, that is success!
Keep doing that each week and you’re soon going to be running that A race.
Now I see failure as normal part of life.
If I fail and keep pushing, it tells me it’s something I really want.
If I fail over and over when I succeed I appreciate the achievement so much more.
But what will other people think of you?
Are they going to laugh at you failing all the time and wonder why you’re even bothering?
No…
Well if they do, their opinion means nothing anyway. They are just jealous you’re actually making the effort.
In reality, it’s the opposite.
Do you want to watch a movie where the lead character succeeds with everything? Every task they do it’s an A* first time, you know the end of the movie because they can’t fail.
Or do you enjoy those movies where the hero has his/her struggles, they do fail at things or only just manage it?
Does that help you relate to them? Want to rally behind them and see them finally succeed?
Be that good movie, failure is normal and don’t stop until you get that A* in whatever you’re doing!
Lee
The Devoted Dad Project
Website: www.leejohnsonfitness.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/devoted_dad/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DevotedDadProject/
