Self-Help: Success and Failure. 

I was ready to accept failure over success.I was halfway up the climbing wall. My arms were trembling with fatigue and my brain was telling me to just let go. Thoughts of, “I can’t!” repeating in my head over and over again. I couldn’t figure out how to get to the next hold on the wall. I wanted to quit. This was hard. My muscles were screaming at me and the easiest option would be to let my fingers slip off the holds and to let my body swing back and fall with its weight into the climbing harness and ropes held by my friend. It would be easy have her lower me back down to the gym floor

When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.-Franklin D Roosevelt

What would you do?

In life we often encounter situations like this where in the end quitting seems like the easiest choice and so we give in, we walk away, or when the goal seems out of reach we let the negative voice win instead of choosing to change our mindset.

There is so much to be learned though by choosing to stick with the harder path and also so much reward.

That day on the climbing wall rather than to give up I took a short break and took a few minutes to reassess my plan for how I would attack the route. I also took this time to breathe and bring my heart rate down. When you begin to worry that you may fail and not reach your goals feelings of anxiety begin to take hold. As a physiological response your body then releases stress hormones including adrenaline. This natural body response can make it difficult to find the clear path. For me when anxiety takes hold my thinking becomes fuzzy and I feel like I am losing control. It is so important to learn strategies to combat this to prevent negative thinking to cause you to want to quit or to derail you on your path to your goals.

Just Breathe

When we are in pressure filled situations we need to allow room for moments of self-care and to slow down for minute. I know as a mom I am always reminding my kids to slow down and breathe and to think when a situation becomes frustrating or stressful. We need to give ourselves these reminders too.

I finished this climb. It wasn’t easy. It took many tries to get past the part of the wall that was stopping me in my tracks. It took sweat, determination, mental focus and I gave myself permission to be okay with it being hard and not perfect. I allowed myself to feel frustrated but didn’t allow it to control me. Don’t view the hard parts as failures. The preceived failures are what teach us to find the strengths within, Taking the time to slow down and collect myself allowed me to regain clarity and to refocus my goal. When I changed my mindset I was able to see my goal differently and I felt more powerful.

Failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success.

We can take these lessons and apply them to so much in our lives including running, parenting, business, success in school and more. I love getting these reminders in life of the pathway to success. Reaching success is not necessarily an easy path.

What strategies do you use to overcome difficult obstacles to reach success. Tell about a time when you were successful even though the path was not easy.