Failure Tue, Dec 06, 2016

Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.

                                                       -Winston Churchill

So many of us are afraid of failure. We're so terrified of making a mistake or falling short that we often will never even make an attempt at the goal. Yesterday I ran in the California International Marathon for the second year. Last year I set a goal of finishing the entire race and I trained for months preparing for it. A month before the race I injured my ankle. I tried to rehab it and train through it, but when race day came I had to pull out at mile 20.  

At first I viewed that race as a failure because I didn't complete it. It was only afterwards that I realized that the 4 months of training was a success in and of itself. If I had been so afraid of failing due to the injury that I didn't even run the race, that would've been the true failure. I had set a training goal and I accomplished it. This year I ran the final 6.2 miles that I didn't get to do the prior year and it felt great. I didn't have the time to train for the full, but I accomplished my training goal again and crossed the finish line.

Slidebelts is in a marathon right now. I know it feels like we are sprinting during this holiday season, but I promise you we are involved in a long race and every day we are accomplishing our goal of training for the peaks that we will ascend in the future. Don't ever be so afraid of a goal that you don't even try to take the first step.