Have you ever gone to the gym and started your workout routine and felt like not being there or something just felt off? Maybe you were tired that day. Maybe you didn’t eat enough. Maybe you were just simply having an off day.
That was me today.
I walked in the gym with my head phones on with my music bumping through the speakers. I was ready to begin my leg workout. I got through my warm up with ease. I even did well on my first two sets of barbell squats but as the weight got heavier my body was not responding well. My last sets were brutal. My body felt so weak, I was distracted, I was tired and hungry. My form was suffering from my body’s inability to get with the program! I kept trying to correct my form but my mind and body were fighting against each other.
Why is this soooo frustrating!?!
I know a lot of people have asked the same question! The gym can make you feel feelings that you don’t like feeling. Some of you have probably experienced this many times when going to the gym.
Before, when the sense of frustration came over me, I would just leave the gym because my workout was completely “ruined.” I became unmotivated and discouraged. How in the heck are you supposed to get excited after failing during a set?? Now that I have more experience, I will tell you a little secret… you don’t. If you really want to succeed at something nothing will stop you. You get up and try again. So after a “failure” you have to brush off the bad reps and sets, and you move on. It took me a little bit to let my failures go. I wanted to go back and redo them because they weren’t good enough. But that’s what lifting and exercise is about. Learning that it’s okay to fail or to have a bad lift or rep because you learn from it.
So, you failed. When you fail, you don’t just accept it, you stay and fight for it.
Failure is part of the process that will lead you to success.
Failure is essential.
Failure is vitality.
After my failed attempt at my last set of squats, I prepared for the next exercise. I dwelled on my squats for a few seconds and reminded myself that I had an entire workout left, and I could not let a few bad repetitions ruin the rest of my workout. My coach told me to think of each repetition as being one step closer to my goal and to not waste a rep. Today, I felt like I had done the opposite of what my coach advised me but some days you just have an off day. I finished the rest of my workout with my head held high and a big smile because I did not allow the first part of my workout stop me from finishing strong.
Your exercise success isn’t about how well you do on the days you feel 100 percent or the days where you killed your workout. No, exercise success is about how you fight and claw your way back to a place where your mentally prepared to attack the next exercise regardless of any flaw or failure. Your success is determined by your grind and getting through the mental aspects of FAILING.
In my many years of exercising, I can tell you that I have experienced this feeling quite a few times, but I have just recently learned how truly beneficial it is to fail.
FAIL, FAIL AGAIN, FAIL YOUR HEART OUT!! KEEP FAILING UNTIL YOU SUCCEED.