Fat Cyclist » Blog Archive » Failure is Not an Option…

“Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.” ~John Wooden

Context is terribly important. When you’re dealing with people’s lives, whether it’s space exploration, military activities, firefighting, whathaveyou, “Failure is not an option.”

For the rest of us, it’s not so much that “Failure is not an option”, it’s having a better, realistic definition of success, then acting appropriately in reaching that success.

The most successful people fail much more often than they succeed. Those failures were not, truly, failures; instead, they were learning experiences, opportunities to grow smarter, wiser, stronger, somehow better than they were when they went in.

A 7:55 Leadville is a great goal, and you’re taking the steps to accomplish that goal. In a real sense, you’re living “failure is not an option”: A good, achievable goal; a solid plan on how to accomplish that goal; and executing that plan. I’m quite sure you’ll hit it; but, if not, you’ll understand why and learn from the experience – while still probably faster than in the past.

Others might set more reasonable goals, but with our individual experiences, talents, and personal circumstances those goals are just as challenging.

To me, failure is only when one sets a goal one cannot accomplish, doesn’t take the appropriate steps to accomplish it, attempt under circumstances one cannot control or overcome, and then doesn’t take away something from the attempt. No preparation, and no learning.

In that sense, “Failure is not an option.”

In any case, that’s not a bad attempt at an unintentional haiku.

My mind works better when I tell myself “just ride as long as you can” rather than something like “no stopping!” Maybe it’s like you said, when you say no stopping your body just hears that last thing. Which is funny now that I’m reading you say it and repeating it, because when I used to work residential care for kids with severe/profound disabilities one of the early things we learned was the importance of stating things in a positive manner (“please put down the toy” rather than “don’t throw the toy!”) because they’d skip right over the “don’t” and throw the toy.

But I digress. What I cling to during tough times in races is a line I first heard from a friend: “Just thing how good the story wouldn’t be if it ended ‘and then it got hard and we quit.’” So I think about how I want my race story to end.

Thinking about how I want my race story to end is a huge motivator to me too. – FC

There is a local triathlon group here of mostly middle aged, overweight, women started by a real dynamic woman whose motto is “The miracle isn’t that I finished, the miracle is that I had the courage to start”. (http://www.kitsaptribabes.com/about.html)

My paraphrase; the only failure is not starting.

Ooh, I like that! – FC