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A 5-Step Process to
Cope With Failure and Bounce Back
I was excited to start working with Robert (name changed), a fitness coach who would finally help me build the chiseled physique I had wanted to reach for so many years. He set up a workout plan for me and told me how I should structure my diet. I had some reservations about his approach, but I ignored them and decided to go all in. After all, if you’re hiring an expert to help you, you should trust his judgment.
Two months later I took pictures of myself, compared them to the pictures I took prior to working with Robert, and realized that nothing had changed. I had gained some weight, but my physique was the same — if not worse.
Soon, I started hating my workouts. To make the matters worse, Robert stopped replying to my emails or, if he replied after several days of silence, he only sent a vague response.
I was discouraged. No matter how hard I tried to follow the traditional bodybuilding advice, it always worked against me. Yet again, I had wasted time and energy on something that didn’t deliver the promised results.
I was done with bodybuilding and I was done with stupid “bulking” diets that only made me gain fat. Because of the greatly increased calorie intake recommended by Robert, I got used to eating copious amounts of food and my weight crept up to alarming levels.
It took me three months to stabilize my eating habits and return to the weight I had had, prior to working with Robert. In the end, I lost almost six months going in circles.
I revised my goal, tweaked my strategy, optimized my lifestyle and today I’m not only much leaner, but also feel healthier, stronger, more flexible and positive about further improvements in my physique.
Failure can have a crushing effect if you take it personally. I hope that by now you no longer think of failure as a reason to give up. However, I know that it’s hard to change your deeply-held beliefs overnight. Maybe you’re already discouraged and have a hard time bouncing back and trying again.
In this part, I’ll share with you the detailed step-by-step process of how to cope with failure. You’ll learn how to process the failure and avoid a big mistake a lot of people make when they fail. Then you’ll learn how to regain confidence, bounce back, and resume working on your goal.
This process addresses coping with failure for which you were at least partly to blame. If you couldn’t do anything to prevent a negative event from happening, please refer to the chapter in which I give advice about dealing with a failure you couldn’t prevent.
Please note that while some suggestions are based on scientific research, a lot of it is based primarily on my personal experience applied in my personal situation. As always, I invite you to be your own coach and choose what works best for you.
