It Was a Fluke - Missing Sets
It happens to the best of us. You don't finish the set. You don't make it across the finish line in time. Or any number of other times and places where you simply fall short. Let's talk about missed sets. Let's talk about failure.
The Missed Set
It's simply not possible to hit every single set, in the gym or in life in general. Eventually, there will be a day when you're off, when you hit a limit, or when you just plain make a mistake. This happens to absolutely everyone, no matter how talented, strong, or passionate you are.
But I'm not here it tell you that that's OK. It's not. While you do need to accept this failure in order to learn from it and move past it, you shouldn't be getting used to it or treating it as a result you can live with. It happened, and you can't change it now. But what you CAN do is decide how you're going attack the situation again.
What we're talking about today is just one such way of looking at things. That the failure was a fluke, an accident, not your normal operating procedure. That you DON'T need to just accept it as your limit.
Treating it as a Fluke
Sometimes you're just not at your best. You're sick, you're stressed, you're not focused, you're sleep deprived, or any number of those or anything else. When this happens, you're obviously not going to perform at your peak. So you miss the set, or the deadline, or the shot, or whatever it is.
When this happens, resist the urge to beat yourself up for "being a failure." Mistakes happen, especially when you're not at your best. If you want to be hard on yourself for something, let it be the fact that you were not at your best to begin with. That's where your problem started.
So you treat the missed set, the failure, as a fluke. An abnormal occurrence that isn't your norm, because you weren't at your best. Instead of dwelling on the failure itself, focus on the cause. The cause can be corrected, and can prevent the failure.
So because the failure was a fluke, there's no reason to think you can't succeed at the next opportunity. You know yourself. You know the difference between a set or other goal you missed because of your genuine limits, or if, more likely, it was just a fluke.
So when it is, you attack that set, that deadline, that goal, again at the earliest opportunity, with the same standard. Don't lower the bar just because you missed the goal one time. Don't make that excuse for yourself. Go right back at it the next time the sets come up and crush it.
What Are Your Sets
As always, I want to hear from all of you. Tell us about your flukes and missed sets, and about how you corrected course to hit them the next time.