Thursday, January 9, 2014

But What If I Fail


"But what if I fail?"

One of my favorite authors Seth Godin recently posed this question in his blog.  This question made me think about my World's Toughest Mudder experience.  His answer to the question of failure was quite simple yet profound.  The answer to the what if question is, you will.  You will fail and fail often if you are truly stretching yourself and trying to achieve lofty goal.  World's Toughest Mudder was a very lofty goal two years ago that became a reality in 2013 through a course of repeated failures.  

My World's Toughest Mudder experience can be looked at through this lens of failure.  I did not reach my initial goal of completing 50 miles.  My legs gave out much earlier than expected.  I failed repeatedly to cross the rings.  I even took several penalties without attempting obstacles in the early morning hours of the race.  I've teetered between proud of the experience and disappointed in my performance.  DC's post about Always Do Your Best   and Pat's post about Dealing with Expectations have helped me grapple with my own notions about performance.  Did I do my best?  I believe so...especially in that moment in time.  Would I do some things differently?  Absolutely which brings me to Seth's second question about failure.
A better question might be, "after I fail, what then?
Many people spend time thinking about things that they should have done differently.  This happened for me as a teacher after every lesson.  Keep in mind that you only know how to do things differently once you have tried something the first time.   My best lessons as a teacher never occurred the first time I taught the content.  As I refined lessons and changed assessments my results got better.  The same holds true for World's Toughest. My failure on the rings is a perfect example.  DC and I have concocted a number of different techniques to stay relatively dry on the rings.  Each one of these ideas was born out of a failure.  So far none of these techniques have been successful but it could be related more to operator error.  After you fail you will be one step closer to succeeding.  Success will occur on the rings in 14. 
I can look at my WTM experience as a failure which could be accurate.  I did after all wind up face down in the New Jersey swampland at 3 in the morning unable to move with the world's dimmest headlamp.  I am instead choosing to look at it as a springboard to my successes in 2014.  Similarly, my first mudder in Wintergreen was the springboard to many successful future races.  I know the weaknesses that prevented me from even more success at WTM13.  I need to be a stronger runner (both in speed and distance).  I have to continue to work on grip and upper body strength.  I need a brighter headlamp and additional baselayers.  I'm working on the plan that will get me back to WTM in 2014.  This plan will be littered with failures along the way.  Each one of these failures will continue to move me step closer to success.

2 comments:

  1. Brian
    Great post, I love this message of failure.
    How is the prep going? Have you been able to learn from your failures?
    Phillip

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    1. Hey Phillip! Thanks for the feedback. The prep is going well but is full of bumps, bruises and failures. I learned a lot through obstacle failure at WTM last year. Are you running any mudders in Australia this year? Patrick will be traveling there to run one (Sunshine Coast I think). I couldn't fit in his suitcase.

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