I’m talking today to my kid’s group about one of my favorite sayings, “Failure is only permanent if you let it be.” Or perhaps I should go further, “Failure only exists if you let it.” If you can look at each “failure” as a way to assess and move forward; If you are open to the lessons available in any failure and to trying again, there really is no such thing.
This is something I’ve applied in my swimming for a long, long time – if you fall short of a goal time, that just means you get the chance to go for it again and that it will be even more satisfying when you do. Unfortunately, applying it to life has been much more difficult for me. I have always been intimidated by life in a way that I never was by swimming. Life has always felt “for real” to me when swimming was always “for fun.”
But whereas life failures can impact you more than swimming failures, I am not seeing a downside of trying to live life “for fun” as well. I tend to take things too seriously, and that has never been an asset to me. It has not furthered my achievements or lessened my failures. So I’m going to give this idea a go – in life as well as in swimming. I will make mistakes… but they will only fuel my future success.
Later: I just found this when going through files on my computer. Apparently I started this blog much earlier than I remembered 🙂
“Across the Channel”
“The stream to France”
June 1, 2013
Swam hard for an hour and thirteen minutes straight in Lake Echo, one of the Seven Lakes in NC. It was allegedly 5K, but unless I had a motor hidden in my suit, I don’t think so.
June 2, 2013
Tough recovery from the race yesterday with a headache from dehydration and hunger. Then A woke up with a fever of 103.5 at 2 am and was awake the rest of the night.
Asked Erica and Henry about gaining significant speed. They said to swim up a lane and add weights to my training. What I need is someone to look at my stroke.
Oct 23, 2013
Had a good summer of racing – 2nd overall in two longer swims – the Jordan Lake Championship 2.4 mile and the Wrightsville Beach Swim the Loop 3.5 miler. Now focusing on some IM training looking toward a meet in January. Clinic Nov 2 – hopefully I’ll be able to clean up some technique issues.”
