“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”

— Robert F. Kennedy

How we deal with failure plays a huge part in whether or not we are successful in achieving our goals. Have you ever tried to change something about your everyday life? Maybe you’ve tried to add a workout into your schedule, or maybe you’ve resolved to start making better food choices. How successful were you? If you were successful, how long were you able to maintain that change? If you are like the majority of people out there, you were able to make the change for a short time. Then something happened. Maybe you had a rough day at work, maybe you had an unexpected conflict. You might have had a child get sick, or maybe you caught a cold.

Life is very unsympathetic when it comes to making big life changes. Don’t let the inevitable obstacles of life derail what you are working towards. Definitely don’t beat yourself up over a missed workout, or a cheat that might have happened on your meal plan. Whatever the obstacle take the following steps:

1. Distance yourself from the moment.

2. Realize that you aren’t a slave to your emotions or impulses. They may be a part of you, but they aren’t YOU.

3. Focus on the long term goal you are trying to achieve, and imagine how it will feel when you get there.

4. If you end up taking a step back instead of forward, move on and focus on how you can do a better job tomorrow.

Significant improvement is the product of small steps taken every day. Every successful person in the world, has had to endure some sort of failure. Even the worst failure can be seen as a positive if you learn from it, and become better because of it.