There are days when I question if I live on the same planet as some people, everyone wants to hear the good things that they have accomplished or to talk about the great things they are going to achieve. Almost no one likes to talk about the mistakes they have made or dissecting their own failures. As humans we are extremely egotistical it is easy to get depressed if you wallow in your own failure or downgrade your own accomplishments however now and again you need to give yourself a good slap in the face stop for a minute and look in the cold hard light of reality at what you are doing. In life, in training or at work reality checks and how people deal with those reality checks are what separate the successful and the failures.
Lets say for example you put a new product out on the Apps store, it’s your first attempt at making something and putting it out to public tender the cruel reality of the free market. No one buys it, your time and possibly your money have been pretty much wasted if you intended to make a profit or to make a living off this venture. You can go two ways with this really.
- Take failure at face value and just give up since your not cut out for it anyway.
- Look at where you went wrong, what did you do right and how can you make it better. Get you head down and try again.
Option A is the easier off the two options, option C is the easiest option and the option most people take
- Doodle along, stick to things you’re good at and not question what you are doing and why.
This is pretty much the only way to guarantee you will not achieve what you want in life, you might be happy or you might hate your life non of this however will be by design. Some people are lucky and are born to the right parents or fall into the right friendship group and get by happily others aren’t so lucky and end up working a job they hate for little financial reward and that’s your lot. However none of this is through design it’s fate…
Fate only exists for those who are willing to sit back and let life wash over them, if you are willing to chip away and not give up when things get hard then you can make your own fate.
Am I happy with who I am and what I am doing?
I can answer this with a yes whole heartedly I am happy in pretty much every aspect of my life, I am not where I want to be ideally but everyone needs a goal and something to strive towards. I have a lot of character flaws and areas that I need to work on a lot but I try and make the effort to address those issues or at the very least be honest with myself and openly admit where I fall down.
The first step in overcoming a problem is admitting there is one.
We can take a step off the soap box and apply this principal to training or sport.
Scenario
I have a back injury that flares up constantly.
Option 1 – It’s nothing to do with my training approach, my technique or the programming I am applying it is because I did that rep wrong or I didn’t sleep correctly, or I jumped weird out of bed or…. wait I hate deadlifts maybe it’s deadlifts….
Option 2 – You know what I am probably lifting weights I have no right to be handling with shit form, I should probably look at addressing some of my mobility issues and maybe talk to a professional about what I am doing programming wise and with my technique… this problem has been recurring quite a lot perhaps I should go and speak to a physio and get them to make sure there isn’t any structural or mechanical issues with my movement or body.
One option is self reflective and looks for a solution and trying to assess the underlying problem, the other is a lazy knee jerk reaction looking to assign blame and not address what is causing the issue.
One attitude will make you better the other will lead to self perpetuating disappointment.
Marc.