26a

A Time I Failed:

At the start of this summer, I was on my normal workout schedule and feeling good about myself physically. I got the news that I had to have surgery and wouldn’t be able to do anything active for a couple months. In the last month or so, I was cleared to work out again which was a big relief for me. Just before surgery, I hit a new career best for myself at 205 pounds’ bench pressing. After the 2-month recovery time, I tried to bench heavy weight again and was struggling to bench 190-195 pounds. I considered this a failure because of how hard I worked to hit 205 and now I couldn’t replicate that success. It took me a few more gym sessions until I was comfortably able to bench 195-200. I was determined to hit 205 and attempted it after about 5 gym sessions and still couldn’t get it without assistance. This was extremely frustrating for me and something I knew I had to get or it would continue bothering me. Next gym session I finally benched 205 and it felt really satisfying to get over that hump and accomplish my goal.

What I Learned from It:

I learned that reaching your goals doesn’t come easy. You have to put a lot of effort and hard work into it if you want to get the results you’re looking for. It would have been easy for me to give up and be satisfied with benching 190-195 pounds, but I knew I could bench more than that and I was willing to go the extra mile to make it happen. Having surgery done and not being at the same level physically after can be really tough to deal with, you see it a lot in professional sports. It takes a focused mindset and increased determination to overcome that obstacle and reach the level you want to be at.

Reflection:

I think failure is a very necessary part of life because you learn more from your mistakes than your success. Failure makes you think about the problem you are facing and figure out ways to solve that problem. I’m not going to lie; I don’t always handle failure well. It can be a very annoying thing to deal with, but once I get over the initial frustration, I start to think about what went wrong and how I can fix it in order to not fail again. I’m the type of person that can’t just let something go. If I fail at something it will nag at me until I overcome it and am successful at what I’m doing. This class has changed my perspective on failure because it made me realize that failure is okay and actually necessary to achieve greatness. It helped hearing examples of famous entrepreneurs and their failures because it gives college students like me hope that we don’t have to be perfect. I am definitely more willing to take risks now because I know even if I fail I can learn from it and improve the next time until I succeed.