In the past, when I gave up on something because it was hard, I got lazy or it just didn’t work out, I took the failure as a sign of personal defect. A lot of the reading, audiobooks and other info I’ve consumed over the past couple years, as well as being more mindful of my experiences has taught me that it’s not the case.

If humans took failures as personally in childhood as many of us have learned to do as adults, things like walking and talking would be pretty uncommon.

It took me many months to change my food habits to where I am now. I failed over and over and over, giving into cravings, thinking it was just too hard and listening to my own negativity. It took several attempts to get back into running after I got out of the Army as well. The first attempt was absolutely miserable. I didn’t try again for over a year.

Failure is a result of an act or event, not a state of being. I am not a failure. I may fail at doing particular things, though. Now I learn what to do next time, rather than let the failure prevent me from even trying again.