{"id":1257,"date":"2014-02-11T14:29:39","date_gmt":"2014-02-11T14:29:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blessedinthemess.com\/blog\/?p=1257"},"modified":"2014-02-11T14:29:39","modified_gmt":"2014-02-11T14:29:39","slug":"failing-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.blessedinthemess.com\/blog\/failing-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"Failing Forward."},"content":{"rendered":"

Fear can lead you to believe crazy things.\u00a0 Like when Shain is out of town, I pretty much convince myself every night that I am about to be murdered.\u00a0 But I am not talking about that kind of fear, I am talking about the fear of failure, fear of not being good enough…. which can also be crippling.<\/p>\n

I used to be afraid of failure.\u00a0 I used to be afraid of disappointing other people, of embarrassing myself.\u00a0 This fear caused me to second guess all of my abilities.\u00a0 In college, no matter how hard I worked in the off season or how well practices went…fear of messing up a play would cripple me in games.\u00a0 It has been something I have struggled with in all areas of my life for as long as I can remember.\u00a0 I feel it before every race I am trying to hit a PR and going into almost every single tough workout.\u00a0 I feel it when trying to prove myself at work.<\/p>\n

\"soccer\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But guess what happened last year? I failed.\u00a0 I missed my BQ time not once but…twice.\u00a0 I failed at something I worked really hard for and thought for sure I had in the bag.\u00a0 And I failed in front of everybody.\u00a0 It was painful and it was embarrassing.\u00a0 But despite all that, it wasn’t THAT bad.\u00a0 I missed my time?\u00a0 So what?\u00a0 Is my life over?\u00a0 Did all my friends and family dis-own me? Did I lose my job?\u00a0 Did my life fall apart? Of course not.\u00a0 Sometimes we chalk up failure to be this big scary thing in our mind, when really it is a necessity to move forward.\u00a0 Failure is not a bad thing. <\/strong><\/p>\n

It took my body over two months to recover from doing two marathons in a month.\u00a0 Every single workout (even going on the stupid elliptical)\u00a0 just felt plain awful.\u00a0 I thought I may never get back to where I was, because not only was my body hurt but my confidence was also wounded.\u00a0 But I kept plugging away.<\/p>\n

\"polarvortex\"<\/a>Who is afraid of running in a polar vortex?\u00a0 NOT US!<\/em><\/p>\n

Within the last month I have felt my strength and speed gaining momentum.\u00a0 I now have this weird new attitude going into my workouts.\u00a0 Usually, going into a race or a tough lift I think to myself… “Okay, I guess we will see how this goes.”\u00a0 What a terrible way to go into something!\u00a0 Now I go in with confidence.\u00a0 No second thoughts.\u00a0 \u00a0 I am not afraid anymore.\u00a0 I am angry.\u00a0 The kind of angry that gives you confidence to know you are about to destroy a workout.\u00a0 The kind of anger that fuels you.\u00a0 Now that I have failed before, I am not afraid to do it again.\u00a0 If I had to do it a million times over I would, and guess what?\u00a0 I probably will, and that is okay.\u00a0 I will keep failing forward.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fear can lead you to believe crazy things.\u00a0 Like when Shain is out of town, I pretty much convince myself every night that I am about to be murdered.\u00a0 But I am not talking about that kind of fear, I am talking about the fear of failure, fear of not being good enough…. which can also be crippling. I used to be afraid of failure.\u00a0 I used to be afraid of disappointing other people, of embarrassing myself.\u00a0 This fear caused me to second guess all of my abilities.\u00a0 In college, no matter how hard I worked in the off season or how well practices went…fear of messing up a play would cripple me in games.\u00a0 It has been something I have struggled with in all areas of my life for as long as I can remember.\u00a0 I feel it before every race I am trying to hit a PR and going into almost every single tough workout.\u00a0 I feel it when trying to prove myself at work. But guess what happened last year? I failed.\u00a0 I missed my BQ time not once but…twice.\u00a0 I failed at something I worked really hard for and thought for sure I had in the bag.\u00a0 And I failed in front of everybody.\u00a0 It was painful and it was embarrassing.\u00a0 But despite all that, it wasn’t THAT bad.\u00a0 I missed my time?\u00a0 So what?\u00a0 Is my life over?\u00a0 Did all my friends and family dis-own me? Did I lose my job?\u00a0 Did my life fall apart? Of course not.\u00a0 Sometimes we chalk up failure to be this big scary thing in our mind, when really it is a necessity to move forward.\u00a0 Failure is not a bad thing. It took my body over two months to recover from doing two marathons in a month.\u00a0 Every single workout (even going on the stupid elliptical)\u00a0 just felt plain awful.\u00a0 I thought I may never get back to where I was, because not only was my body hurt but my confidence was also wounded.\u00a0 But I kept plugging away. Who is afraid of running in a polar vortex?\u00a0 NOT US! Within the last month I have felt my strength and speed gaining momentum.\u00a0 I now have this weird new attitude going into my workouts.\u00a0 Usually, going into a race or a tough lift I think to myself… “Okay, I guess we will see how this goes.”\u00a0 What a terrible way to go into something!\u00a0 Now I go in with confidence.\u00a0 No second thoughts.\u00a0 \u00a0 I am not afraid anymore.\u00a0 I am angry.\u00a0 The kind of angry that gives you confidence to know you are about to destroy a workout.\u00a0 The kind of anger that fuels you.\u00a0 Now that I have failed before, I am not afraid to do it again.\u00a0 If I had to do it a million times over I would, and guess what?\u00a0 I probably will, and that is okay.\u00a0 I will keep failing forward.    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t