Valuable Stepping Stones

My husband has a sign in our office that says, "The lesson is in the struggle, not in the victory."  He has this sign as a reminder that there is value in the struggle, and even in the failures we experience along the way to what is ultimately victory.

We are a success-oriented, success-celebrating society, and most of us have spent our lives viewing failure as something to be avoided at all costs.  That thinking has been difficult for many (or most) of us who have struggled with our weight for years.  It's hard to be a walking example of weight loss failure in a society that rejects failure. 

When we start on Take Shape for Life, we all experience immediate success as we see weight begin to drop, and that early success propels many of us on all the way to our goal.  However, that early success doesn't keep everyone motivated and many find themselves struggling sooner or later.  

I want to encourage all of the strugglers today.  Your struggles, and even your failures, are valuable stepping-stones on the way to ultimate success.  Every struggle and every failure teaches us what doesn't work and gives us the opportunity to fine-tune what we're doing - if we're paying attention along the way :-).  I once heard a speaker say that "the hallmark of achievers is that they have failed their way to success - every failure teaches us what doesn't work."

The key, of course, is to pay attention and use those struggles and failures as opportunities to learn.  We may trip and fall a dozen times, but if we get up again and learn from the experience, we'll be stronger in the end.  The victory will also be that much sweeter - and there WILL eventually be victory.

When we fail - and we all do, one way or another, sooner or later - we are faced with a choice.  We can either beat ourselves up and allow the failure to define us, or we can choose to learn from the failure and use that failure to propel us to future success.  The choice is ours, so choose wisely :-).