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Photo Courtesy of Jeff Pagan (flickr)

This is one of the most powerful questions you’ll ever ask yourself.  If you take this question seriously and brainstorm all the possible adventures you could experience, it’s truly transformational.  This is one of the questions I asked myself before I decided to begin training for my current marathon.  The physical challenge of the marathon is an incredible test of my own self-discipline, endurance, and courage.  The possibility of failure is huge because I’m no where near prepared.  However, in these kinds of situations I like to break down my options and consider the worst case scenarios.  When it came down to it, the worst thing I could imagine would be injuring myself while training and cause permanent damage.  However, that possibility would exist even if I was in great shape, so that’s not a real consideration.  I could get the dreaded DNF status, better known to athletes as Did Not Finish.  That’s not too bad because I would probably end up running a long way and making myself that much more prepared for the next race.  It might be embarrassing not to finish, but I’m not running for someone else’s benefit.  I’m running this race for me.  During my first marathon I raised money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and the extra motivation of running for a great cause actually did propel me further.  However, this race, this challenge, is personal.  Bottom line, I’m perfectly willing to accept the risks and make this marathon happen, whether I cross the finish line or not.

The funny thing about fear and the possibility of failing at anything is that the worst case scenarios are usually unlikely and typically not as bad as you imagine.  When I think back to the worst things that have happened to me, the circumstances were almost entirely out of my control.  Alternatively, the situations where I succeeded usually happened because I was willing to push through my irrational fears and make my dreams a reality.  I’ve listed some tricks that have helped me overcome fear in the past and allowed me to break through the inertia that is always there in the beginning.  The inertia is that dark force of doubt that prevents you from making the first valiant effort towards your goal.  It’s by far the hardest part of the process because almost everything seems easier once you get started.  It’s possible that you may have to break through many fears and various levels of inertia throughout the process.  Most goals worth fighting for have many obstacles to overcome and many forces out of your control.  Learning to master the ability of overcoming fear and failure will be vital to your success in anything.  Give these ideas a try and let me know what you think.  What would you attempt if you could not fail?

Brainstorm a Huge List of Ideas

If you couldn’t fail at anything, what would you do?  Make a list of your wildest dreams and then keep going.  Fantasize about your ideal career, your perfect day, you great accomplishment, and then think through what it would take to make those dreams come true.  Whatever you brainstorm, Do Not include luck.  Attempting to win the lottery should not be on your list.  The point of the exercise is to bring your life under your control.  Outsourcing your power to the forces of luck and chance will only make you feel weak and out of control.  Make a realistic yet challenging action plan that makes these goals achievable and exciting to pursue.

Here’s an example from my Marathon Training Schedule.  It’s a ballsy game plan, and it’s possible that I won’t finish, but I intend to make this happen one way or another.

Long Run Saturdays
Week 1: 5 miles or 1 hour
Week 2: 10 miles or 2 hours
Week 3: 15 miles of 3 hours
Week 4: 20 miles or 4 hours
Week 5: break
Week 6: 13.1 miles or 2 hours
Week 7: MARATHON (26.2 miles or Bust!)

Try Something New for 30 days

Morgan Spurlock made this idea mainstream when he created the documentary “Super Size Me.”  What’s amazing about trying something for 30 days is that it gives you the chance to experience it temporarily and decide if it’s a good fit for you life.  It’s hard to fail it you know that the new challenge has a short time frame.  It’s like dieting, but the point isn’t to only do the new activity, quit, and then walk away.  The goal is to analyze the effect of the 30-day challenge and decide if it’s worth continuing.  In this respect, failure could be defined as simply not trying.  If you tried something for a month and made the conscious decision not to continue because it wasn’t good for you, that’s awesome.  You’re not a failure, you’re a smart quitter.  If you knew you could not fail, these 30 days should be a breeze.  I tried this philosophy when I began running at 5 am.  Check out that blog post here.  I have since switched to evening runs, but the experience was fantastic and I’ll probably try 5 am runs again in the future.

Visualize Your New Challenge as a Class Project

This strategy has been very effective for my blog and book writing goals.  I think it’s worked well because I had many homework assignments that are similar to the content that I create for the business.  My blogs are like short 3-page daily assignments and the book is like writing 15, 12-page semester papers back-to-back.  It sounds like a lot when you add that up, but it’s very manageable when I break it into tiny pieces.  For my final senior project in college I directed a play for my theatre degree.  Outside of learning how to direct, spending hours in rehearsals, and planning every aspect of the production, I had to write a 60-page analysis of the whole thing.  It was an enormous undertaking that only came together because my professor broke the enormity of it all into smaller chunks throughout the semester.  If you know you will not be able to fail, attempting gigantic projects, such as this one, are wonderful tests of your abilities and can be achieved more easily in pieces.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on failure.  Fill me in on some of the things you would try if failure wasn’t an option.  Thanks for reading my blog and I hope the information is helping you along your journey of conquering life after college!

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Don’t forget to check out my new revolutionary eBook for conquering life after college!

The Clueless Graduate,

Jeff & Tessa Sanders

Jeff Sanders


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