What is Failure?

I have been thinking a lot recently about failure. I have been thinking about it in two areas, first in my professional life, second in my crossfit life.

In my professional life I have had to take a serious look at myself to decide what I want from my career. My job is something that I have for the most part enjoyed for the last 3 years, although for the past six months there have been periods of time where I just didn't want to be there.

Today I had a really good talk with my boss. She wanted to know if I still want to work at the company. Both her and the other partners want me to stay and continue working with the team and contribute, but only if I am truly committed. Here is the issue: even though I have enjoyed this job and have been somewhat successful at periods of time, I have never been "all in" committed. What does that mean to me? It means that I have shied away from the experiences that would cause me to fail. Instead, I have done the things that are easy that still allow me to make money and be "sorta" successful. This may be ok to some people, but as I look back on these last three years, I don't know if its ok with me.

So what do I do now? Do I quit this job and decide to strike out on my own? Do I stick with it and prove to myself that I am able to overcome this gigantic fear of failure that I have? Do I do something in the middle that keeps me right where I am right now?

I know that the last one isn't an option. I can't continue to be stagnant. Whether I stay at my job or I leave I crave that challenge. I almost feel like I need to fail. Why do you ask? Because its good for the soul. Failing (if you truly gave it your all) allows you to figure out what is most important to you. I think this is alot of the reason that I would like to be an instructor for Dale Carnegie. I want the challenge. I want the opportunity to fail, but at the very least I want to give it my all.

Crossfit
How does this fit into Crossfit? Well as you all know this fits in extremely well. Crossfit is all about failure and starting again. I don't remember exactly what my workout was the first day of Crossfit with Boz as my coach, however, I do remember that we did burpees and that I tapped out probably well short of half of what was prescribed. Since that time I have continued to fail but have also continued to bounce back and try new things.

One problem I see with my own crossfit training is that I still avoid certain things. Basically all gymnastic skills scare the crap out of me. I feel like I need some direct training in it. However, I also haven't tried enough because I am afraid to fail in this as well. I know this is an issue, and will directly be addressing this in the short term.

Going Forward
So what will I be doing to address my fear of failure? I will be tackling it head on. I am not sure what I will be doing about my job, but should have a decision very soon. Either way, I will be doing something that I may fail at. That is one of the things I am looking for.

I remember reading once that you need to fail at least five times a day. This seems pretty ridiculous at first...but if you think about it, if you aren't failing at least that often, you probably aren't pushing yourself.

How do you tackle your fear of failure (if you have it)? Also, what are the ways that you have failed in your professional life and have gotten over it? What about in crossfit?

Persistence

Persistence: according to Webster persistence is defined as: "the action of existing for a long or longer than usual time or continuously." Now, what does this have to do with Crossfit? Or even more importantly, your diet? It has everything to do with it.

As people we are constantly bombarded with advertisements for McDonald's, ice cream, bread, sugar; all of the things that we as followers of a Zone/Paleo diet need to keep out of our life. How do we do this on a long term basis? We need to be persistent. This means a couple of things to me. First off it means that if I fall off the wagon or eat an entire pizza in one sitting, I don't beat myself up over it. The second thing it means is that when that happens (and it will happen, its inevitable) the very next day or meal, I am right back to hitting my diet on target. Whether you Zone, eat Paleo or Primal, or even are on the Natural Hormonal Enhancement diet, you need to be able to jump right back in to good food choices.

I personally find it extremely difficult to adhere to a diet 365 days a year 24 hours a day. In fact I find it difficult to make it through a week sometimes. However, I have been very successful at losing weight and gaining muscle (45 pounds of weight lost and 15 pounds of muscle put on). This entirely has to do with the fact that I have been extremely persistent in my dietary habits over the last year. There are a couple of ways that we can increase our ability to stay persistent in our food habits:

• Eliminate all cheat foods from the house. This includes bread, pasta, vegetable oils, cake, cookies, basically anything that would allow you to have a breakdown.
  
• Eat at home. This is an extremely simple thing to do for some, and incredibly difficult for others. Prior to my shift to a zone/paleo diet a year ago, I had never cooked. Now I probably cook 15 meals a week at a minimum.
  
• Get your friends to buy in. Ok this is definitely the most difficult, but I am a big believer in telling people what you are doing. Some are going to tell you its stupid, others are going to be totally on board. In my opinion, letting people know forces you to stick with it because you know that they know what you are doing.
  
• Adapt your favorite foods. I love potatoes, specifically I love hashbrowns and french fries. Unfortunately neither food is really considered healthy in anyway whatsoever. I will on occasion make sweet potato french fries or hash browns. This is a great alternative that is significantly healthier than any regular potato dish you make. Plus this limits the cravings for regular fries.
• Go to the gym! This one is simple, if you are working out, you tend to feel like you need to eat better to match up with all the hard work you are doing on the elliptical (whoops! Wrong crowd. I meant on the rower!).
  

Now we come back to the question of how do we limit the damage if we do fall off the dietary wagon. One of the key things is knowing what you are doing and what you are going to do in the future to keep going strong on your diet. For example, lets say you are a zoner that is going out drinking with your friends on a Friday night. You are probably going to have some beer and hard alcohol, possibly even too much. One of the things that I would do in this case is to limit my carb intake for the day. I know I am going out drinking and I know that each beer is maybe 1.5 carb blocks, I just eliminate as many carbs as I can throughout the course of the day to make sure I am not overdoing it too much. You could also do this by limiting your carbs the following day.

Remember, this is a marathon not a sprint. We have changed our lifestyles so that we can live a longer and healthier life. Not a life devoid of pleasure. If you have a piece of chocolate cake just remember that when you have breakfast the next morning it is going to be your perfectly healthy meal of some eggs, coffee, and a couple of pieces of fruit. We should strive to be hitting our dietary eating goals (i.e. what we put in our mouths) about 5-6 days a week. Some can do better, most cannot. This is something that is difficult for everyone. Just remember if you aren't perfect one day, get right back to it the next.

What are your ways to stay persistent in your diet? Also, what helps you to be persistent in every part of your life? Please post to comments.

Sergeant Kramer is a Masochist

Whoever this Sgt. Kramer fellow is he is total f'ing masochist. 6 rounds of 10 squats with 2 minutes of rest is freaking brutal. We warmed up with some jump rope and then 3 rounds of 7 kte/7pullups and then a hydrant run. For the Sarge I did the following:

135x10, 155x10, 175x10, 165x10, 165x10 165x10. I think that I could do this at 175 straight across if I didn't feel like crap, but either way, I got a ton of volume in.

After we did some 400m sprints that were more like fast jogs. 1:30, 1:25, 1:15 with equal amounts of rest to run time. Overall it was a good day considering I am still at 80% or so.

One thing that has been crossing my mind is opening a restaurant. Maybe something where I can make healthy salads and dishes with a primal bent. No additives or unwanted foods in them. Not sure this is my calling but I am going to do some research.

Finally feeling better

After nearly a week of being knocked on my ass from this cold I am finally back to normal. I got basically nothing done while I was sick other than trying to procure a cow. That's right...a cow. I am buying one with my fellow crossfitters so that we can save some money on beef and really get cooking!! It should be a significant savings. $220 for close to 40 pounds of beef. What a steal!!

On top of that, I have been eating super clean while I was sick. The worst thing I had was some Mac and Cheese on Sunday. Otherwise it was super clean.

Today during my return to Crossfit we did a Cindy variation:

1 round of cindy, 1 Power clean (145lbs)
2nd round of Cindy, 2 power cleans
etc... for 20 minutes.

Finished 7 rounds and only had 2 cleans left for round 8. Considering that this was the comeback workout I felt pretty good about it. Next time I will be totally back and at it.

My neck hurts!! Damn you Sotts Press!!

So today I got to experience a fun new one. We did the Sotts Press today at the tent. Good times all around. It made me feel like the weakling that I am.

5*3 45 -50 - 55 - 60 - 65.

That ish is crazy difficult. Definitely the most demanding exercise I have done in terms of midline stability. It is crazy how you have to hold in the breath in order to actually keep the form needed to make the press. After we did:

5 Rounds
5L, 5R 50lb Db power snatch
10 swings
5 burpees
Lots of suck:
Time 7:17. Overall this was a good morning. Also not too crazy cold.

Fran, New Years and other thoughts

I did Fran last week. By far it was my fastest time. I finished in 5:33. I was really stoked about that, but still was a little frustrated about my lack of good pullup skills. I really need to get some more kipping endurance. I guess that means I will just have to kip more often.

Other workouts last week included a horrible team workout that consisted of 75 of the following: 115lb C+J, partner pullups, 115 lb lunges, and burpees. That really sucked. Especially being hungover. On Saturday it was Front squats 185 x 3 x 5 and a little metcon of 10 50 lb dumbell C+J (split cleans) and 15 pullups 3 rounds - 8min. This morning it was a tabata of wall ball, KB swing, and burpees 191 score. I should have done a 62lb kb but instead did the 53.

So sometime in the next week or so I am going to be getting to workout and personal resolutions. Not sure when, but I will try and do it when I have some free time next week.

1 Week Later

and I am back. Sorry I was gone for so long, but Christmas and life will do that. Speaking of Christmas, this was probably the best one that I have had in recent memory. For the first time in a while everyone was just happy. My mom said that this was the first Christmas that she was actually looking forward to in quite some time, and I think it definitely exceeded expectations. I did some great training last week and am eager to hit our WOD's 5 days a week in the new year. Speaking of which here was the deal today:

Helen - with a 62lb Bell.

8:54 I should have gone much faster. Kipping pullups are killing me. I really need to be better at these. It really pisses me off that I am not faster at kipping. This is a workout that is made for me. On another note I did pretty well with the heavy ass bell. Felt good to stay strong during a workout that afterwards made me want to vomit everywhere.