Failure vs. Feedback
“There is no such thing as failure there is only feedback” Dr. McDonald
This has become one of my mottos. I love this quote and I know it to be true…in fact I believe it so much that I now see the world differently. To clarify; it wasn’t the quote that changed my way of seeing the world, but it was instead many changes within myself over the course of about 11 years which included much learning, growth and overall self betterment. It’s just that the quote perfectly encapsulates how I now see things.
Few people know this about me, but I’ve actually failed more times at more things than most people could ever imagine. In part I believe that it’s not my successes which have gotten me to where I am today, it’s been my failures. However, I no longer see things as failures or successes. I now think that everything happens for a reason and that if something didn’t turn out as I had hoped for I approach the situation again from a slightly new angle and as a result try something different. After creating the light bulb filament, Thomas Edison was asked how he could fail over 10,000 times and still keep trying. His response – “I never failed I just figured out what didn’t work.”
Speaking of what works I’ve always been interested in how things worked and why some things work when others don’t. In fact – As a young child I would constantly take things apart and put it back together (although they didn’t always work as they had before) in an attempt to figure out how it worked. Later as a teenager and young adult I was interested into the why one thing worked better than the next thing. And as of late I’m interested in what is the most effective and lasting means of change helping people to ultimately become their best self, which will improve every aspect of their life; including leading a full life of health and happiness.
Here’s one of my learning lessons. About 9 months ago I was on an awesome training cycle. Many of my weightlifting numbers were nearing or at all time personal records, my body fat was lower than my average, and overall I felt awesome. However, I was on the verge of over training. I wasn’t getting quite enough sleep and my nutrient uptake needed to be higher to accommodate for the massive amount of physical activity and stress that my body was being placed under. On one of my last training days toward the end of the cycle I was scheduled to attempt a heavy box squat which by all calculations and previous training weeks should have been very doable. And to boot, I almost never miss an attempted weight during a work set in my training. The first rep felt really good but the second rep took almost everything out of me that I had, which left me completely gassed in attempting the third rep.
So why am I willing to share this with you and what did I get from this experience?
First off I believe that I learned more from this miss than I did from the previous week’s success. I’d also like to think that I’m humble enough to show my failures along side with my successes and hopefully this post can help you see that there truly is no such thing as a real failure and maybe even inspire you in some way to change your thinking. I’ve found that far too often strength coaches, fitness professionals and guru’s are willing to brag and talk about their success’s. In fact there are 10′s of thousands of such video’s floating around the web with one guy after another lifting weight. I wonder though how come they never show their misses. And when a missed or screwed up lift is shown it’s usually third party, and only to poke fun, or possibly demo exactly how a particular movement shouldn’t be done. I too have used videos in such a manner and am at fault for this. However how many videos from exercise professionals have you seen where the expert didn’t accomplish the lift, feat, goal etc? Personally I can’t think of one.
Secondly, I learned a great deal from this training day. Overall I was once again reminded that there is no such thing as failure and I was quickly given some feedback as to what worked in my training cycle and what didn’t. I was quickly reminded that the body really only grows, gets stronger, and leaner when we rest not when we train. Therefore recovery is equally as important as training and should be treated as such. I do not believe that I was recovering as well as I should have. I needed a little extra sleep per day and a few extra sessions with a foam roller or a massage would have done the trick. Plus as I indicated earlier, I wasn’t eating enough. The quality of my food choices were spot on, but overall I just didn’t have enough calories to help my body heal thoroughly. On the technical side of the lift my first two reps were pretty good with a nice smoothness and uniformity about them. However, when going into the third rep for some odd reason I shifted and reset my feet and my body, plus I spent longer at the top with the weight on my back thus wasting precocious energy. Furthermore, I lost tightness at the bottom of the third rep, my body pitched slightly forward and my knees caved in. All of these aspects caused me to miss that third rep.
However, had it not been for the miss of the third rep I would not have learned all that I have shared with you nor would I have been able to share it with all of you. And for that I am grateful!
This experience was a learning lesson and a reminder that the only true failure is quitting on one’s self. If you are not happy with how you feel or how you look you may want to consider that what you are doing is not working….and it may be time to do something different.