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Trying Your Best, But Still Failing

Growing up, I had one goal.

To become a professional athlete

I didn’t care if it was basketball, baseball, or football. I just wanted to play…and if I didn’t make it, I was nothing more than a failure

My basketball career quickly came to end after tearing my ACL at the end of my freshman season at Southwestern University (I tore it again just a couple years later playing in a 3 on 3 tournament). Failure.

My football career quickly came to an end after tearing my ACL for a third time during my second season of Semi-Pro Football. Failure.

My baseball career quickly came to an end after not making the cut at an Arizona Diamondbacks tryout in 2008 (Pictured). Failure.

We have all lost someone, something, and at times even ourselves. We lose. We don’t make the team. We get hurt. We fail. That’s simply part of life. We gain and we lose. It would be amazing to go through life and not go face disappointments, loneliness, despair, or catastrophe.

This is life.

Tiger Woods once said, “I’ve never learned anything from a tournament I won.”

Looking back at my perceived ‘failures,’ I‘ve learned a thing or two.

Here are five strategies I use to remember when I’m trying my best, but still failing. Hopefully you can use them too.

1. Focus on what you have, rather than what you’ve lost.
Society will dictate how you perceive what you should do and what you should have. It will show you through mass media how you are to behave and what determines your worth. Do not allow anyone or anything to place a price tag on your soul. Whenever you start to focus on the negative you will attract more negative. The moment you shift and start to see how things appear, and learn from them in a positive light, life becomes an adventure. As soon as you begin to see all that you have accomplished and succeeded in, you can see that you have not just existed. You are surviving humanity and you are winning. You have made it this far through illnesses, losses, hurt, disasters, near-death experiences, and many more hurdles. Here you are! Keep moving forward by seeing how incredible you have moved through this life.

Don’t just survive, thrive. 

2. Painful experiences force you to grow.
No pain, no gain. 
It’s unfortunate, but we learn through pain. It’s not that we intentionally go out of our way to hurt and learn. Think of a kid who has been told not to touch the hot stove. Until the kid touches the hot stove and feels the pain, he will not stop. The moment he experiences that excruciating pain, he realizes that the hot stove is never to be touched again. That kid was me. Very few people learn by witnessing others in similar experiences…At least that has been the case for me. Why do I have to continually learn the hard way? Do we as humans believe that we are exempt from pain? Do not look at your failures and your suffering with a victim mentality.

Grow stronger from the pain, don’t let it destroy you. 

3. Nothing is permanent.
If you look back at your life, just when you thought you couldn’t keep going, you found a way to make it through. Here you are doing it again! Each time we experience failure, when we are doing our best, we feel like we can’t go on. You can, and you will. Everything in life is temporary. Like all the old clichés, “The sun will come out tomorrow.” And, if not tomorrow then in a few days. Nothing lasts forever. Sometimes, when there are obstacles in the way, it’s a sign that you need another route. The ancient poet, Rumi, said it perfectly: “Live life as if everything is rigged in your favor.” Even the small things that you find insignificant may just be steppingstones to something better.

This too shall pass. 

4. Don’t be ashamed of your failures and scars.
Whenever you begin to take responsibility for your decisions, you heal from the past. Every scar that you own is a medal of honor. You have survived something powerful. You do a huge injustice and disservice to your soul when you reject the things you’ve overcome. Never be ashamed of what has happened but utilize those things to keep moving into something better. You don’t owe anyone an explanation. Your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe it. You do, however, owe yourself the utmost respect. You have battled through the storms and disasters. You may have fallen but the floor hasn’t swallowed you up. Your purpose in this life is an ongoing journey. Follow that!

A scar means you survived. 

5. Complaining solves nothing.
In an article on complaining, Guy Winch, Ph.D. writes, “The problem is that today we associate the act of complaining with venting far more than we do with problem solving. As a result, we complain simply to get things off our chest, not to resolve problems or to create change, rendering the vast majority of our complaints completely ineffective. Even when we do address our complaints to the people who can do something about them, we tend to be unsuccessful far more often than not.” Complaining is not venting. Complaining is reliving the problem and the issues over and over again while stopping growth. There is a difference between sharing your lessons and letting them become the drama in your life. You can inspire others by living a life without the constant negative sharing. When you fall (once, twice or twenty times) remember that these are steppingstones to something greater. If you complain after every fall, you are likely to not get very far.

Stop complaining. Do something. 

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