The Wet Embrace of Failure
Unfortunately, my zip wire experience over the weekend was cancelled and you’ll be forgiven for thinking that I had anything to do with it, as I so vividly described my fears of what the outcome would be, you could very easily have decided that I just chickened out.
This was not the case though (and I have witnesses to corroborate) because what actually happened was that life got in the way.
Now, it seems ironic that life might get in the way of a near death experience, and I don’t mean it so literally, it’s more that something unexpected happened which altered the plans. In this case it was quite simple – the predictably unpredictable British weather meant that everything in North Wales, from zip wires all the way through to those small stands selling pointless tat with place names on, was closed.
It’s very easy to sit here now and say “If it hadn’t been cancelled, I would have definitely done it” – and I definitely would have done it – but my point really is that, even with the best will in the world, sometimes things happen that you can’t control and there is not a damn thing you can do about it.
Think about any goal that you have currently. It doesn’t have to be fear related – let’s say it’s health related and you want to lose 2 stone before a wedding that you’re going to in 6 months time (this is going to be difficult to imagine as I’m trying to gain weight and I actively hate weddings…and even if I didn’t, who gets married in winter?).
You can plan your exercise routines, buy some new gym clothes, join a Bikram Yoga society; you can plan your meals, track your calories and clear out the cupboards; you can even create a fancy spreadsheet tracker for your vital measurements – but you know that day, at work, when it’s Barbara from Human Resources’ birthday, and she brings in a fat, gooey, triple chocolate fudge cake? You are going to be all over that like a fly on shit.
It isn’t your fault though, you didn’t know it was Barbara’s birthday, you thought she was off after suffering near-fatal injuries in a zip wire accident (weight restrictions were ignored) – but life (Barbara’s life) did literally get in the way this time, and now you’re eating a years’ worth of calories in one sitting.
You’ll say to yourself “Oh well, I have been good recently”, and you’ll soon follow that up with “Seen as I’ve pigged out at lunch, I might as well make a day of it and get a Chicken Balti for my dinner” and before you know it “nomnomnom cake…give me cake…who’s wedding?” (This is probably more an example of a lack in willpower, but it’s still a scenario in which an unexpected event has caused an objective to be missed, so we’ll stick with it).
The link here between achieving your goals and being blindsided by force majeure is that in pursuit of your objectives you are supposed to fail, you are supposed to have set backs, and it is not supposed to be easy first time – but it has to be like this.
Why? Because this is the only way you will ever learn to keep pushing yourself to get what you want; by going through the process of failing time and time again until finally it clicks and you can say to Barabara from Human Resources “I don’t want your fat, gooey, triple chocolate fudge cake, I’m really enjoying this quinoa and I don’t want to be wearing a dress the size of a marquee”.
Sometimes you will fail to achieve your goals because you made the wrong decision (eating the cake) and sometimes you will fail because you didn’t consider the possibility of a thing happening before it happened (everything closing because of adverse weather. Literally everything. Why a café can’t open because of a bit of rain and a stiff breeze, I will never know).
Willpower you can control, weather systems you can’t - you will learn something though from every failure, even if it is just to book thrill seeking events in places that have a more consistent climate.
In summary – embrace failure in pursuit of your goals, realise that there will always be things beyond your control and finally, always say no to your co-workers enticing offers of chocolatey goodness.