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Why I Constantly Create Challenges for Myself, Even After I Fail

How I work on personal growth and becoming the best version of myself.

By Michael BrockbankPublished 2 years ago 4 min read
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Why I Constantly Create Challenges for Myself, Even After I Fail
Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash

I’m always in a state of self-improvement. And no, I’m not anywhere close to being a perfect specimen of a human male. In fact, I fail a lot of the challenges I create for myself. But that’s where the learning begins.

A lot of people learn more from failing than not. Unfortunately, today’s society expects perfection from the get-go, especially when it comes to social media.

But I digress as that’s a story for another time.

So, why do I create challenges for myself even though a lot of them fall flat? What’s the point?

Understand Where My Limits Lie

How do you know how hard to push if you don’t know what you’re capable of? Now, there is a right and wrong way to push yourself, though. Going too far can lead to burnout or even injury, depending on what you’re challenging yourself to do.

At any rate, setting goals in challenges lets me discover how far I can push something and where the line is in the sand.

For example, I recently published 90 blog posts in 30 days across three different websites. I was a mental case by the end, but I was able to do it. What this taught me was that there was no way I could add any more projects to my plate.

Right now, I am week two into a 12-week fitness challenge for myself throughout the end of the year. The idea is to not only lose weight but to see the progress of a body transformation and where I need to work both physically and mentally.

When you create challenges for yourself, you can get a baseline of where you are while working on a strategy to take yourself even further.

To Learn, Grow, and Succeed

As I’ve said, I have failed many challenges for myself. However, every one of these situations gave me an opportunity to learn and grow so that I could succeed the next time I try.

So, in this regard, the failure simply becomes a learning experience to help in the next attempt. Can you really call it a failing at that point? I don’t think so. I’d rather think of it as an “educational experience.”

Because that’s all a “failure” truly is as long as you’re willing to learn and put that information into practice.

It’s rare for someone to step onto the field and be an instant expert. It takes training and a constant string of failures to achieve success later on. This is true whether you’re a running back for some football team or a freelance writer working from home.

Challenging yourself gives you opportunities to learn and grow.

Challenges I Create Propel Me Forward

The challenges I create for myself are those that are helping me achieve my end-game goals. For example, I am pushing to lose the last of my weight and get fit before the end of the year. In this case, it’s literally saving my life.

Then again, when your heart stops because of poor physical fitness, it kind of lights a fire under your ass.

Another example is how I am working on writing X amount of words per day while spending Y amount of time working on personal projects. In this case, I am challenging myself to spend a certain amount of time to finish my first published book.

Every goal and challenge has an undertone of propelling me forward as a professional. Well, aside from the fitness thing. That’s just keeping me alive.

Though, I do have a few fans who want me to be a Generation X fitness influencer, which I am kind of debating. Mostly to see if it’s possible to get to that point of fitness for myself.

Anyway, every challenge I complete, whether I fail or succeed, only works to benefit my life down the road.

The Sense of Pride and Accomplishment if I Succeed

I’ve always been one to relish in accomplishments over having something just given to me. I’d rather work for the gains, whether it’s finding treasures and loot in video games or spending 40 minutes at the gym to build muscle mass.

The fitness challenge I mentioned earlier is all about becoming the best physical version of myself as I can. And when I can finish a set at a higher weight than before, I geek out quite a bit.

In the beginning, I was only able to complete eight push-ups before failing. When I was able to do 22, I was incredibly proud of what I achieved. Sure, doing 20 plus push-ups probably doesn’t sound like a lot to many people. But for someone who was only able to do eight, it’s quite the accomplishment.

Right now, I’m constantly working on breaking personal records as it fuels motivation while making me feel good about myself overall. For me, it’s all about building up self-confidence.

And having a strong sense of self-confidence can help you in a myriad of ways in everyday life.

Create Your Own Challenges to Find Your Limitations…and Surpass Them!

Now, you won’t always be successful if you create challenges for yourself. And that’s OK. It’s more about how you handle those failings that will determine if you’ll be successful the next time around.

Use them as a way to better yourself and gain knowledge of what you can handle.

Challenges can be literally anything you want to work on. Fitness, writing, sports, gaming, or even dating…it’s all about self-improvement.

You can't be afraid to fail. Otherwise, you'll never learn who you are or what you're truly capable of accomplishing.

How are you going to challenge yourself today?

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About the Creator

Michael Brockbank

I am the owner and operator of several blogs including WriterSanctuary.com. As a freelance writer since 2012, I have covered a range of topics and completed over 8,000 projects for clients. Follow me @WriterSanctuary on Twitter.

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