How long does it take to feel good (Part 4: When You Fail)

If you haven’t read Part three of this blog series, click here to check it out!

Failure is never a matter of ‘if’, but ‘when’.

When you set a goal for yourself, what you’re really doing is saying, “The person I am now is going to become the person who can do _____.” Rarely does transformation of anything happen in one try with zero setbacks.

Such is the way it has been on Week 2 of my How Long Does it Take to Feel Good challenge.

As I said in Part 1 of this series: Being fit and strong feels better. However, tell that to my primitive brain, who by all costs wants to stay in the cave and be safe where she is, rather than coming out and changing anything.

Week 2

Week 2 has been a solid combination of wins and losses. And thanks to coaching, my focus has been in the right place.

Week 2 win: I feel stronger, like I don’t have to try so hard.  My body is starting to move together in synchrony. Lifts I haven’t done in over a year are smoothing out, and I can see my shoulder muscles a bit. Yay!

Week 2 loss: With stronger, fuller muscles comes the familiar feeling of my legs not fitting into the pants I want to wear. Boo.

Win: I’m starting to desire the workout. 4 out of 5 days this week I wanted to head to the gym. The day I wasn’t super into it, I went anyway, and it felt good just five minutes in.

Loss: I’m still struggling with my ‘shoulds’ (I shouldn’t have stopped working out, I should be better than this) which come up all the time during tired moments, weak moments, moments when I’d rather eat popcorn on the couch than suit up to lift.

A moment that sticks out to me this week that I would NOT have overcome without coaching is this:

I was driving to Crossfit on Monday afternoon (the very first day of my week!) and I was running a bit behind. This set my brain on edge right away, and I was tempted, for the briefest moment, to throw in the towel for the week. I shrugged off the thought and kept going, but then I encountered a traffic jam. The minutes ticked away and I found myself so agitated.

Brain kicked in: “See? You should have kept working. There’s no point showing up late. That’s not cool. Just turn here, go home, eat some chips, cut your losses for the day.” 

Arrrgh, brain, you make a compelling argument! But no. My last coaching session, we had spoken about this negative-nancy brain of mine, and decided on a phrase to tell her when she acted all cantankerous.

Thanks brain, noted, now go away. I’ve got work to do.

I repeated that over and over as I passed the street I could have taken to escape home, and by the time I got to the gym (1 minute before class!) I was resolved, if not a little motivated.

What I learned this week

My takeaways from week 2 are really simple: Failure starts in your brain. If you let it, it’ll come out and ruin all that hard work you’re doing. Your best defence against the mind drama is to know that it will try and take you down ahead of time. Find something to tell it so it shuts the heck up and lets you WORK.