Failure

Tonight I was up way too late and reading on Psychology Today and found an article about failure. I decided to read it since that word alone sparks fear in me. The article was about the strategies that we can use as people to not "die" in a sense when we fail at something. I have always been really sensitive to failure. This stems a multitude of areas like a dinner that doesn't taste so good, a grade that was lower than I would have liked, a friendship having a moment of discord, a disagreement with my husband, and more personal things like not losing weight fast enough or putting weight back on.

As I read the article, it mentioned that failure really serves a valid purpose in our lives. It teaches us so much. I would completely agree with this although the pain that comes with failure to me always seems to over shadow the idea of growth for the moment. I can think of a huge failure in my life right off the top of my head that truly taught me so much. I was in a relationship a few years before meeting Anthony for 6 years. It was such a chaotic relationship that I really don't know if it was mostly good or mostly bad. There were certainly good times and my ex fiace was actually a very good man.

In saying that, we both made a ton of mistakes and inevitably we failed at keeping the relationship strong and happy. In my heart for years after the breakup (I was the one who left) I felt like a big failure. I felt I had failed at being a good girlfriend, failed at loving another person, failed at being loved, and failed him mostly. It was incredibly painful and it took me 2 years to get to a place where I could legitimately realize that I wasn't doomed to failure within a relationship. Even in the first year or so of dating Anthony, I still felt like any minute I would blow it.

Another area that really crossed my mind when I started thinking about failure was my weight loss journey. I lost a total of 130+ pounds a few years ago. I was really getting to a place where health was of optimum importance. I would go to the beach every day and run and then go to 24 hour fitness (my awesome gym) and work out again. I have ALWAYS loved to eat so that is just something that I have to accept that I have to work out more. I didn't really mind because I had SUCCEEDED in developing a habit of exericse. Well, then I met my beautiful now husband and started attending Graduate School and the gym and beach were a thing of the past and over 3 years I put back on 70 of those pounds. When I graduated last month, I got on the scale and felt like a big FAT failure.

I do not give myself a lot of heat about weight. I never have. I have always felt like I had a lot to offer the world and that my confidence and attractiveness had nothing to do with the number on the scale or the tag on my jeans but I have also always valued sports and being healthy and I got to a point in Grad School where I was neither atheletic or healthy anymore. I also have always known that given my family background I would be a woman who is shaped like..well a woman. I would have curves in the back and front and would most likely have a little more meat on the bones. That has never bothered me and more than excites my husband. There is also a part of me that knows that there is an issue when your health is bad due to it and there has to be a healthy weight for me at 5'1."

In saying that, I wanted to use some of the advice of the article I read tonight in psychology today to try to work on my aspect of failure and kind of bounce back from these two big failures. The breakup was over 5 years ago and I have learned a lot since then about being a loving person, loving another person, and obviously have married the man of my dreams so I am getting there on that topic. There is the other one to think about though. I am constantly faced with daily failure in this area when I am lazy and don't head to the gym even though I have paid for a 3 year membership.

I need to work on my image of failure. This failure is keeping me in a failing position. Any ideas how to get myself out of the failure funk?