How Training to Failure in the Gym Teaches me to Fail Better in Life

One thing I can 100% say about myself is that I am committed to consistently developing into the best version of myself. The decision to do this every single day does not come easily, especially since there were significant periods of my life when I struggled with depression, anxiety and stress induced binge eating. I’m sure you can figure out that during those times, I was far from my best self and in fact, I was enabling the worst versions of myself.

As an active woman most of my life, dancing, exercising, and eating healthy have always been exciting. In fact, I was SO inspired by how food can hurt and heal the body that I decided to study nutrition in college and become a Registered Dietitian.

I never thought failing at what I loved doing would help me become a better nutritionist, fitness specialist, and coach. It wasn’t until after I started to battle my own demons in depression and anxiety and my easy love for fitness & nutrition turned indifferent and negative that I really began my journey.

I knew what I SHOULD be doing, but I didn’t want to put the energy into it. The knowledge that training and eating well made me feel like my happy old self again was there, but was quickly forgotten after looking in the mirror and being unsatisfied with what I saw. Gaining 25+ lbs in less than a year was very difficult to acknowledge. Finding a way to maintain the positive feeling that exercising and fueling myself with nutritious foods gave me longer than a day or two, felt impossible. It wasn’t until after many failed attempts that I realized that focusing only on aesthetics (how I looked, how clothes fit) would not be enough for a sustainable change.

I started approaching my workouts and eating well as a therapy to improve my mood. It was there that my mindset shifted. My WHY became so much deeper than an outward appearance. I found a way to pull myself a little further out of the dark hole of depression every day. Consistency became easier after that. It wasn’t a wish of 6 pack abs that pulled me out of bed to get to the gym each morning- it was the desire to take that first deep breath of life during my workout, to grasp that exquisite feeling of elation after my last rep, and to feel that natural high throughout the rest of the day.

The training I do in the gym requires to push your body to muscular failure- an uncomfortable, painful, exhausting point in training so that the muscle can breakdown and then recover during rest days. Very similar to what happens when we use failure to progress forward in life.

Before I realized it, my motivation & drive in the gym started to impact other parts of my life- relationships, business goals, big dreams I had given up on. I found that the confidence and energy I created by challenging and developing my physical self was parallel to my mental health. I found I could tap into the inner strength I re-discovered in the gym every day, to fuel every aspect of my life.

It is from here that the dream of creating a coaching and training program for others who are going through or have gone through similar struggles was ignited.