Failure is Inevitable in the Quest for Fitness

By Don Otis –

How are you doing with your New Year goals? By February of each year, the average American (fifty percent of us) has already fallen off the wagon. By April, even more have given up on their goals.

We have discussed the importance of goals the past few months.* We don’t get anywhere without them. If you have already slipped up, don’t get discouraged. You can hit your internal reset button and start again. You can revise your goals and start fresh. If your goals were too ambitious to begin with, don’t feel like you are copping out to reassess if they were realistic in the first place. Americans want instant success, immediate results and these celluloid values perpetuate unreality.

Be patient with yourself. Persevere. Never give up because ill health, weight-related problems, and frustration (depression or discouragement) are lousy alternatives. And remember, you are not the first one to fail.

Twenty-five years ago, I signed up to compete in the Los Angeles Triathlon series. It consisted of a 1,000-meter swim, followed by a 25-mile bike ride, and a 6.2-mile run. I was prepared for the biking and running. The swim was another matter. I had to fly to London on business just two weeks before the event. My swim training suffered. The day of the race, I was jet-lagged, under-prepared, and more than a little apprehensive. The start of the race was chaotic. Two hundred yards from shore, in the middle of the lake, fellow swimmers were kicking me in the head or swimming over the top of me. I began to panic. I started to hyperventilate and soon flagged down a boat and called it quits. It was a humiliating experience.

For the next few days I thought, “I will never do an open water swim again.” But something began to change in my thinking. Instead of giving in to the failure and fear, I started training twice as hard. I built up a swim base (more long, slow swims) and the confidence that goes with it. The next month I entered another open-water triathlon and did well. My point is this: you will have setbacks, failures, disappointments, poor experiences, or miss your goals. What will you do with these? Will you give up? Instead, allow your setbacks to urge you on!

My mother, now a 79-year-old dynamo, walks at least two miles a day. Several days a week, she goes to a gym to work with weights or walk on a treadmill. She told me recently, “I don’t feel right unless I do something every day, even if I don’t feel like it.” This is the key. As Americans, we think feelings are more important than sticking with our goals. For those of us who workout regularly, we know how much better we feel from pushing through the discomfort, discouragement, failures or temptation to give into how we feel.

Any long-term benefits in your life or mine come because we push past how we feel. We overcome the mental or physical obstacles. We recognize that God has entrusted us with this marvelous equipment–our bodies–and that we are His stewards.

*Check with your doctor before starting any new exercise program.

Don S. Otis is the author of Staying Fit After Forty and a personal trainer living in Canon City, Colorado. He can be reached at Don@veritasincorporated.com © 2010