Step 1: Failure

“If it turns out my best wasn’t good enough, at least I won’t look back and say I was afraid to try; failure makes me work even harder.”

-Micheal Jordan

When it came time to actually make the decision of quitting my job and trying to be a full time athlete, the one thought I held on tight to was the fact that I wanted to be able to look back on this time of my life and this dream of mine and know, really know, that I gave everything I had to make it come true. I want to be able to look back and know that at the end of the day, I gave my whole heart for a dream that I didn’t just talk about. I put action to my words and did it afraid. I did it even when I knew not everyone would get it.

And ooof. Let me tell you, I’ve spent a lot of time, too much actually, worrying about what people would think. So at first glance, this was actually a real big leap forward for me. I threw opinions of every person I didn’t think really mattered and said “Fuck it. Let’s try.”

But saying you don’t care what people think and actually not caring are real different. Don’t ask me how you get from point A to point B cause I honestly have no clue. What I will say is this, I went from caring too much about too many opinions, to caring, paralizingly so, about letting the people who believed in me, down.

When Andrew and I got married, at my bachelorette party, the girls put a video together of Andrew answering a bunch of questions about us, and me together. ((it was the cutest damn thing in this whole world, I highly recommend bridal party’s do it for their girls!)) But one of the questions they asked was what my biggest fear was. His response was the fear of failing and thinking I let my people down.

I don’t think I had really ever thought of it so point blank before but lawd was he right. It is crippling and honestly I don’t know what lead me to believeing that or feeling this way. I can with absolute certainty say, the people in my corner would never leave my side just because I fell short of a goal. But alas, I’m still here writing this dang post about how much I think about letting my people down. When I was kid in high school, my dad would often compare me to one of his border collies. ((Bare with me, it’s not as mean as it sounds)) All I wanted to do is work, a work ethic, never being an issue. But I always desperately wanted to please my person (coach, teammates, parents, friends) Like a border collie, a cow dog, they NEED a job but they also NEED to make their handler proud. It’s like some deep seeded instinct. Call it loyalty if you will. I don’t follow ennegrams but I imagine this quality is in there somewhere.

My entire life, for the most part, I’ve found a way to channel this quality of myself for the better. I’ve been able thrive in most instances, honestly I think it’s a large part of why I did so well in the fire service. I would die before I let my team down, in some regards, absolute literally.

But this year, this season, this opportunity. I let this quality own me. I quit my job and every bad training session, bad lift, bad performance in the open or quarters; I immediately allowed myself to instantly remember that. Instantly remember not only did I take a chance to train full time, I asked Andrew to take the leap with me. I cut our household income significantly all for what? So I could completely flop? Not even make it past the 1st stage of qualifying? I quit a job I love, that I was good at, that I had the best people around me…to go after a dream and not even make it semifinals…..

To say I’m embarrassed is a profound understatement. I’m disappointed in myself. When I think of the pity my team is feeling for me, it makes my skin crawl. Every comment telling me I’m “so fit, so great or still inspiring” makes me want to crawl in a hole and never show my face again. The fact that I failed makes me incredibly mad because there is no one, not one soul, to blame but myself. I’ve let a thought, a quality in myself, to own me. I was weak and every chance I had to pick my head up in a workout and push, or refuse to be a puss bag, I caved.

Now, let me say this, I didn’t qualify for a few reasons. While I have worked really hard on Strict HSPU this last season, it’s still a clear weakness and it got me not once, but twice this season. My motor/engine/stamina is still wildly inadequate in comparison to the field and where I NEED to be. But when I look back on the open this season and quarters, where I failed the hardest, was my head. If it came to a point in the workout where, like the wall facing HSPU, I got there and instantly knew getting through those 20 reps was gonna be a FIGHT, but instead of doing just that and FIGHTING, I quit. I started feeling sorry for myself. I remember actually saying out loud to Drew, “There’s no way I’m making it to semifinals.” I said that! OUT LOUD. I didn’t just think it for a second, I actually said it, and I think I actually said it multiple times. Sitting here writing that moment, I’m actually shaking my head. How on earth would anyone expect to rally when the thoughts they tell themselves AND others is that shit?!?!

Don’t ask me how I got to that point. How I walked into this season thinking that where my head was, was gonna some how rally a home run performance…When I quit my job, I figured it would be easy. I’d have so much time to train, recover and eat. I’d get a full night’s rest every single night and just like that I’d be infinitely fitter. I never once thought that I would mentally implode with the weight of the decision. I never expected to feel like I was battling every day to somehow be positive.

It’s been almost a month since quarters, and while the wound isn’t fresh, it’s still most certainly still raw, and every week it seems like some one or some thing unintentionally sprinkles a little salt in it. But, I’ve had some time to kind of see the performance for what it was and while there were absolutely some things movement or fitness wise I still need to work on, at the end of the day, I don’t think I missed qualifying because of my fitness, I missed because of my head. While that might seem encouraging, I’m now in this spot thinking, how on earth do I train that?

One piece I look back at and see was missing or maybe overlooked is how I was training. I spend most days training by myself and I’ve never considered it a bad thing. I’m disciplined and self motivated, getting in the gym and training by myself has never been an issue. My husband trains with me when he can and I have a good friend who spends the long weekend sessions in the morning with me. But knowing that I had made such a big shift in my day to day life, I think having someone to grind with in the thick of it, actually pushing towards the same goal, someone who can run laps around me. Maybe they could have been that lifeline I didn’t know I needed. It’s like when it came time to find that extra gear in quarters, I always went to the immediate panicked thought of “Oh, shit. You redlined, you’re doomed, you fucked up.” Then spiraled and so on…you get the point. But had I gone to that spot more in training maybe that wouldn’t of been my response. I think, I accidentally played it too safe in training, over paced and always reasoned with myself that I was “being smart”. Then when it came time to show up, I forgot how to compete.

BIG OOPS.

It cost me. It cost me the rest of my season.

Hindsight is 20/20 of course but here I am. Realizing how long this post is…and realizing a lot of this stuff for the first time. So many athletes talk about the mindset required to be great, they talk about how tough it can be, or that giant sense of imposter syndrome….but it’s hard to really understand it all until you experience it. I didn’t expect the transition to full time athlete to be easy necessarily, I knew I’d miss my crew and my job, but I most certainly never expected the response I had. I never expected to feel like a nut case or weak. Even writing this now, so please know, that’s not my intent. The intent is to put it all out there, my raw thoughts of how exactly I cost myself this opprotunity.

My confidence is shaken, my heart is broken, and on any given day I am SO FREAKEN MAD. But slowly, surely the fire to come back even stronger, fitter, TOUGHER ..it’s growing. I refuse to let my story of going after this dream end because I let myself down. If I’m not fit enough to hang, then I can accept that. I can accept that there are just fitter people out there, beating me. But what I can’t accept is quitting before the game even got started. I won’t accept beating myself, being weak, or talking myself out of being really fucking good.

No. Fuck that.

My story is far from over.

This particular chapter is a real bitch, but it’s gonna make me so much better.

NEXT PLAY.