Celebrating Failure

1. This summer semester, I attempted to bench press 95 pounds for 5 sets of 5 repetitions. It took my fourth try (about 2 weeks) to finally hit that weight and rep scheme, and those last couple of reps were sloppy and so tough. The first time I attempted the weight, I failed on the third set, 5th rep. The second time, I failed on the 5th set, 3rd rep. The third time, I failed on the 5th set, 4th rep. That 3rd attempt was incredibly frustrating, because I only got one more rep than the previous training session and because I was SO close to my goal.
2. I learn so much about myself every time I fail in the gym. The bench press is my favorite of the big three lifts because I feel exceptionally confident in my form and my ability to recruit the necessary muscle groups, so when I repeatedly miss a lift on the bench I tend to really stress about it. This time, though, I really focused my energy into reminding myself that most women my age can't bench 95 pounds for even one repetition, much less for a 5x5, and that every time I tried the weight I was able to lift more. Even though I didn't hit my goal for two weeks, I wasn't plateauing or stalling or losing progress; I was still moving forward, and it's okay that I wasn't moving forward as quickly as I wanted to.
3. I used to be very, very terrible at accepting my failures. I would try to blame someone else, or I would retrospectively change my goal so that it would seem like I hadn't actually failed. Somewhere in my college career - probably due to the fact that I failed at more things here at UF than I ever did before college - I learned to let go of my hang-ups over failing. My biggest feelign fo failure happened this past January. I let go of a two year relationship with someone who I had been best friends with a year before we began dating. Coming out of that relationship and realizing that my future was suddenly much less determined felt like a huge failure to me. I had "failed" at maintaining a happy, healthy romantic partnership with someone important to me. I am actually very proud of myself for how I dealt with this potentially isolating and depressing failure; I applied for a competitive research scholarship and won it, I applied for a job tutoring with the UAA and got a position, I proved myself to my research lab so much so that I was offered a paid position (the only paid undergraduate out of 35 of us), and I reconnected with old friends and made a ton of new friends. Essentially, I put myself in a ton of different positions to fail at a ton of different things, and I put my heart into succeeding at each of them. My way of dealing with failure has become to ensure that I succeed at something else, which has landed me in the incredible place I find myself today - thriving, happy, and confident in my abilities. I don't think that this class has changed my opinion of failure at all. Then again, if I put more effort into this class and completed more assignments, specifically the ones where I am supposed to interview strangers, I am sure that I would have experienced more failures.

One of the best days of my college career. Having a lab that works so well with

me and that is proud of me is a feeling I wouldn't trade for the world:)