Failing in itself is not a bad thing, that's how we learn and do better next time around. Everyone has and will fail, and no I'm not just being negative, it's just a fact of life. If someone claims that they have never failed, then that means they have lead an unbelievably cautious life, which means they have failed by default because they have not attempted to succeed. I have failed hundreds of times. When I used to play cricket for Essex, I was always learning new skills, tweaking with my game, and doing so caused me to fail. Nobody succeeds first time in everything they do, some things I picked up straight away, but most of them took a lot of practice to make it 'second nature' so I wouldn't fail at them. That proves to myself that you fail so you can do better, but some people are so afraid of failing, that they risk not progressing and coming to a stand still.
As mentioned at the start, this can be read by anyone really, you don't just have to be into fitness. Even though fear is self imposed, humans have always been susceptible to fear. Go back to the caveman era, those guys were afraid of the wild animals they had to kill, but they knew they needed to kill them to live. But some people let their fear become bigger than their dreams. Let's take banking as an example. I know someone who works in banking, and has passed a few very tough professional exams, in order to get 'higher up in the food chain'. If he let the fear of failing overwhelm him, and avoided taking those exams, he wouldn't have progressed, he will still be in the same situation, with the same job title, doing the same work.
Nobody likes to fail, failing does not make us happy, but it is a necessity of life. How on earth would we learn something new, if we didn't fail at it?We are not robots, you can't program in a new skill and do it perfectly the very first time.
If you are in the position of wanting to lose weight and get in shape, but you're afraid of failing and thinking people will laugh at you, then you will stay in the same position, well.....actually probably slowly get worse. Get rid of the fear! So what if you fail? so what if you don't lose as much weight as you want or your trainer wants during the first week? As long as you stick with it, work your ass off, you WILL get to where you want to be. If you quit however, then that's what failing is. Everybody gets knocked down in life, and those people who stay knocked down, those people fail, but those who get back up and try again, they're the fighters, and they're the people who will succeed.
Don't let fear control you, because if you do, you will never move forward. Some people avoid making decisions, because they are afraid that they will make the wrong choice. So what? you try again. Fear can very much make or break you, but the most annoying thing about fear, is that we control it. So in a way, if avoid doing something because you are too afraid, you have actually been beaten by yourself. The thought of that is what spurs me on with my goals. I will accept being beaten by someone better than me, but I will not accept being beaten by myself.
Lee Gregory Fitness
