Failing Doesn't Make You a Failure
Author: Melissa Lahti ~ January 21, 2014
Week 3 ~ Challenge
What a better way to start your day than warmed up and
stretched out. For this week’s challenge I plan to get up 20 minutes earlier every
morning and stretch. Not only does it warm up the muscles and get them ready
to take on the day, it gets the blood flowing and wakes up the brain. I then
plan to stretch for another 15 minutes before I go to bed at night.
The reason I allowed for 20 minutes in the morning is because before I begin stretching I want to get the blood flowing. I will spend about 5 minutes walking in place or pacing the house to warm up my muscles a little before I attempt to stretch them out. I will then do some basic static stretches starting with my head and ending with my toes. I will hold each stretch for a minimum of 30 seconds, stretching my body only to a point where it feels good and maybe just a little beyond that. For ideas on a static stretching routine, Click Here.
Good luck this week, it should be pretty relaxing!
Results
I figure I can easily tell you I stretched everyday this week and that I feel wonderful and relaxed. Truth is, I failed at this challenge miserably. I swear for me, this was harder than giving up electronics. The first two days went great and my daughter and I stretched every morning and it did feel wonderful. Then the next morning we were running late and didn’t have time to do it. That night I fell asleep on the couch and upon peeling myself off, in the middle of the night, to drag myself to bed there was no way I was going to stop to stretch. Unfortunately I then came up with an excuse every morning and every night.
I was feeling really bad until I realized that this is the reality of life. This is the reason we never stick to our new year’s resolutions. We think something sounds like a great idea until we actually try it and find out it just doesn’t work for us. We all fail sometimes and we need to realize that this doesn’t make us a bad person or a loser. It makes us human! One of our greatest problems is that we continuously beat ourselves up for failing. When you are given a task that you can’t handle, it is important to either give it up and move on to something you can do or modify the task to make it something doable. If we constantly tell ourselves we are a loser or we suck, we will begin to believe it and it will then become reality. This can really make a person depressed and stressed out.
I refuse to believe that just because I failed to stretch every morning and every night, I am a failure. In the future I will figure out a better way and try again. For instance, I may be able to stretch only once a day in the afternoon. The main thing I have to take from this experience is the fact that as human beings we will all fail sometimes, we just have to get back up, brush ourselves off, and try again.
Just this weekend I was talking with my mother and she was feeling bad because she is still stuck on the first challenge of cleaning out her closets. I told her there is no reason to feel bad if she doesn't feel like she has time to clean out her closets, there are two options. She can either leave them alone and live with them the way they are (which is not the end of the world), or she can plan a time to get it done slowly, even if it’s a half hour a day or an hour every weekend. There is always a way to accomplish things, you just have to schedule it in and make plans for it. You should also never be afraid to ask for help! There are many people out there willing to help people who need it.
Always remember you are a wonderful person no matter what!
Send in your results! We would love to see them and/or post them.
View The Current Challenge Here.