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Monday, January 07, 2019

Failure: it’s a good thing

Embrace failure. Yes, I just said embrace it!!!   Its a fact of life.  It’s going to happen, so why not embrace it and plan for it?    We start the year with resolutions but then face failure when we stumble.  We start a new plan or goal and then along the way encounter a bump in the road and experience failure.  It is bound to happen. And so many times when it does happen we throw up our hands and give up totally.  So for this reason, I am welcoming failure and upheaval this year!  I am embracing that it is going to happen!

What in the world am I talking about? I am saying that in no way shape or form am I aming for perfection in this journey that I am on.   It’s not a sustainable concept or mission on life for me and probably not for most people!  Life happens and life is definitely NOT perfect. So why do we expect our diet and health plans to always be perfect? 

I tried the perfect route before!  Over and over!  I’ve drawn lines in the sand and said ‘this is it’ time and time again!   I have also had incredible success with the “let’s be perfect route” on this healthy journey!  One look at these pictures and you can see the success!


I achieved that success with total restriction!  Seriously, I remember days where I would have a perfect day and get to the end of my day with some calories (ww points) still left and I would reward myself...with a small glass of grape juice!  Seriously?  Grape juice as a reward???   I was striving for perfection.

While perfection DID work...it wasn’t sustainable!!!  Just look at my current picture and that is proven!!!

What happened????  Life happened!!!  I reached my goals and felt so amazing...but life happened.  I went on vacation    I had busy days at work.  I had a crumbling marriage.  Injuries.  You name it...but to sum it up...life happened!!  And perfection wasn’t as easily or even possible to achieve and I stumbled...I stumbled big time!

This time around I’m allowing and even accepting failure.  It will happen.  So why not embrace it and figure out ways to keep failure at a minimum?  But how??

The main thing is that  I’m not setting any major goals in terms of weight I will lose each week/month/year.  My goal for January was to be less on the scales.   If that was one measly ounce...awesome it would be less!!!   I’m committed to tracking every bite I eat!   With such easy and loose ‘goals’, I’m allowing for failure! I can eat what I want....I just have to track it!    Somehow the simple act of tracking my food works for me in that being cognizant and aware of the food going into my mouth has made me very willing to keep it under control and stay within a set caloric range!   But the freedom of not vowing to stay within that range and having to lose weight gives me the freedom to be completely honest with myself when it comes to tracking.  I don’t ‘forget’ to put in something that I ate.  I don’t ‘accidentally’ misjudge my portion sizes.  I just put it down in black and white and it’s ok if I fail for the day.  Ironically enough...on Monday I was sure I went over that range of calories...but I was determined to be utterly honest and track it regardless!  I allowed myself the room for ‘failure’ in my eating....I embraced the fact that I will falter.  And by embracing it, I took away the ‘I messed up’ mentality and turned it into a complete victory!!!   

As a side note, I was sure I totally blew my numbers on Monday.  But  when I did go in and track...even though I messed up, I found that I was really not that far off ...maybe 30 calories over!!   How many times have I given up and gone off track for days or even weeks and months in the past because I thought that I had blown it by eating too much??  It has happened over and over because I wanted and expected perfection  and when perfection didn’t happen (even just in my mind) I gave up in disgusted failure!   But how many times could it have been like Monday where I was sure I messed up and if I just would have tracked found that I was actually doing well???  This time I embraced the possibility of failure and found that I really didn’t fail at all!!!

Embrace it...because failure WILL happan!  

10 comments:

  1. Funny you should write about this this morning. I was just talking to hubby about it yesterday. I missed my WW meeting last week because I knew it was scale week and I wasn't able to face all the extra eating I had done in the holidays. Tomorrow will be scale day and as much as I'd like to take this one off as well, I have decided that I have to face the scale. Whatever is is and is of my own making. If it turns out to be failure, then I have to embrace it. Thanks for a great post.

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    1. Failure and success go hand in hand....failure breeds success...if a person is strong enough to face the failure and continue working!!

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  2. If we plan for a little "failure" (read as real life) then it's not really a failure at all. Love your attitude. You're doing an awesome job!

    I had a really stressful day yesterday and ended eating breakfast and dinner out. Not healthy choices either. And of course I'm up this morning. But I have the rest of the week to do better!

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    1. That is exactly it....it’s not failure if I embrace it!!

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  3. That is what I hear about listening to all these podcasts is that you can't have these really restricted "diets" and it ain't going to come on fast (but for me, it sure can come on fast!). I usually do horrible, horrible with X pounds by Y date. But I've got try to lose 1 pound a week. All my eating choices need to be geared to just 1 pound - some weeks it will be more, some weeks less (or in the wrong direction). But I've got to get out of the mindset of cheating days (ie weekends!) at least for a while because I HAVE to get the scale moving!

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    1. Exactly! While o don’t have a set goal..I refuse to set one..I’m just saying ‘less by any number’...I really want at least a pound a week!

      And your right..10 pounds in a week FITB me is nothing in terms of gaining!!!! But those ten pounds will take 3 months to remove!!!

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  4. Thats a good way to look at it because there is always things out of our control so if we go with the flow we still move forward instead of being our own worst enemy.

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    1. Your right...there will always be things that we can’t cobtrol....we just have to let those things NOT control us!!!

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  5. I agree with you on the tracking no matter what and not setting yourself to a specific number. I am loving the high and low calorie days, it really helps my brain. Monday I gave myself permission to be high calorie and I ended up in the same place I was on a low calorie day. And I don't regret leaving calories on the table because I know that I'll have another high calorie day coming up. Today is a low calorie day, but Saturday I'll get to eat whatever I want. :-) It doesn't feel restrictive and that's helpful. . . . But I guess I won't see if it truly works until I've been doing it for a little while.

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  6. I think you have a great attitude. Life isn't something we can control, there are good and bad days for each of us.

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