Handling Failure

We all have bad training or nutrition days. As Dan John said, "Of five workouts, one will be great, one will suck, and three will be right in the middle." How we react to them can be the difference between progress, standing still, or going backward. I've previously talked about confidence being part of the solution and false-confidence being part of the problem, but this goes beyond that. We can be well within our confidence range and have everything go wrong. Even the most confident of us can go into a little tailspin as a result. Today was that day for me and inspired me to write about the process I go through.

With my experience as an athlete and in training, I have seen my share of bad days, whether it's missed sessions, missed reps, or just flat out misses. I've had perfect plans, prepped to the plan, and still seen failure. There are really only a few paths that can be taken after a really bad day, and which ones your choose can make all the difference. It may seem like this only applies to training, but I can assure you, it also applies to nutrition and dieting. Think of the days or weekends where you take an unscheduled detour from your nutrition plan. It happens, even to the most diligent tracker; you go out to eat, there's a family gathering, you forgot your meals. You can ignore what happened, evaluate and continue, evaluate and adjust, let it get you down and blame everything, or let it get you down and quit. In any case, our suggestion will always be the same; don't beat yourself up over it and don't try to compensate without taking the time to think it through. We prefer that, just like training, you acknowledge and evaluate what happened.

Yes, you can completely ignore your failures and possibly have the same avoidable slip-up happen. Or, you can take a few seconds and evaluate what happened, why it happened and decide it's 100% OK. I'm not advocating perfection, but I am promoting self-awareness. Whether you want to be strict, choose to allow detours, or decide it's too much at the moment is up to you, but you have to be aware of what is happening and why before you can make a conscious decision.

• Ignore that it happened. Basically just shake it off, think nothing of it and continue. This is the same as putting on blinders where somebody else loads the bar for you; ignorance is bliss. Having that short-term memory loss is great when you're still in the training session or competition, but  that's it. If you are ignoring how a training session went, it's probably one of the reasons you're experiencing failures or stalling. In order to improve and not plateau or regress, it is important to have an understanding of why the day was bad and what caused it. This means taking off the blinders and being actively involved in improving. For me, this is an in-session only option, and even then, it is rare.
• Evaluate the plan and the failure. If my workout was less than great, I will end up here at some point. Sometimes it comes after the self-loathing, anger, and disappointment, but in the end I always come back to evaluating. Once I have the chance to relax and look at the plan, the failure, and the circumstances, I have one of two paths. 
• Decide it is viable and continue. This is where logs are great and can really help open your eyes to the progress. When something goes wrong, like the reps are slower than they should be or I barely miss a lift, I look at the events that led up to the training session. Did I sleep well? Did I not eat enough? Did I burn out a supporting muscle group the day before? Have I seen improvements in ANY part of my training? Will a deload help? If any of those is a yes, chances are, it isn't the plan and I continue on knowing that the plan will be a success.
• Decide it won't work and make adjustments. This is a hard one because you have to honestly know your capabilities and use them to evaluate the plan. Could you have made the weight, even on a near-perfect day? Are you going to have "better" days where you are more rested, prepared and can complete the training as written? Am I stalling in other places? Can a deload fix it? If the answer is "No" or "Probably not", then something needs to be adjusted. Constantly having failures in your training is draining, both mentally and physically, and will most likely lead to stalling or backsliding. There is no shame in admitting the time isn't right to run a program or the intensity is too great and needing to back it down. Sometimes the best progress comes from taking a step back so you can get momentum.
• Feel disheartened, blame yourself, the program, or the trainer. Every now and again, all the stress catches up and I end up here briefly. It's common to get frustrated when things are going well and then a bad failure happens. In this state, there are three paths.
• Acknowledge that this isn't helping and take a step back and return to evaluating instead of living in woe-is-me.
• Program / trainer hop. I see this most commonly with newer trainees. When you haven't experienced success following a failure, it is a huge challenge to overcome. You question the program, the trainer, and you might even believe the grass is greener. Even when you have had positive experiences, it can be a challenge to slow the thoughts down and rationally evaluate after an ego-crushing failure. This goes back to having confidence. The self-confidence to know it isn't the end of the world and that if you can just pull it together and take the deep breath, you'll be able to step back and return to evaluating. Sometimes the answer is change programs, but you won't know if you don't go back and evaluate.
• Quit. We're not even going here because this is not an option. At this point it doesn't matter who takes the blame, there can be no progress when you quit.

We all have less than perfect days and how we handle them will dictate our level of success. The only sure way to find success is to evaluate honestly and choose the right path. Many people turn to external motivation and communities to keep them going, but when the details are ignored, the result may be akin to banging your head on the same wall. Take a moment, acknowledge, evaluate, and decide...and get back to making progress.