What to do When You Fail: Not if, but when

What to do when you fail, because you will fail at something sooner or later… but then what?

I finished a 75 Hard Challenge a couple weeks ago and still feel like a failure. What do you do when you fail? I don’t know what to do but start again.

You haven’t really failed until you give up on your goals.

In the Marine Corps I was trained to continue to fight no matter what. You continue forward. If you can think, if you can move, if you can do anything, you move forward. Your mind will want you to quit long before your body gives out.

I proved that to my young self-time and time again. And throughout my 10-year career, I only saw a couple of Marines truly fail. It wasn’t because they gave up, it was because their body failed them. I endured too long more than once and came away with injuries that still bother me today. You can do more than you ever thought possible.

The trick is, when you feel like you failed, you have to get up and do it again. You have to keep trying until you make it.

Once you get past failure, the next step is professionalism.

I was honored in 2006 to be sent to a Spec Ops school as a “conventional unit” we were the first to go to this particular military school. I loved every second of the two-week course training to be a spec ops warrior.

One of the things I learned was how to operate like a professional and train to be one. An old Delta guy told me the simple truth, “Amateurs train until they get it right. Professionals train until they can’t get it wrong.” That shaped the rest of the training I did in the Marine Corps and still shapes how I train professional warriors (cops and military members, and civilians) today.

During my 75 Hard Challenge, one of my goals was to lose weight. I thought by not eating any sweats and working out every day that would just happen. Other people did it, and it has worked in the past, so why wouldn’t it work for me?

That is the amateur in me talking. It is telling me that this worked before so it might work again. The pro in me knows I need to do more.

What do you do when you fail? Do you look back and just be the amateur that is half-assing your life just getting through, or are you going to be the professional that goes all-in and trains until you can’t get it wrong?

I got it wrong because I was thinking like an amateur. I need to get back in there and train like a professional. That is my next goal.

What about you? What have you failed at that you are going to get back in there and work to be a professional at?

Ben Branam

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