Is It Ever Too Late to Bounce Back from Failure?

It’s nearly the end of January… and if your New Year’s Resolution has survived up to this point, congratulations!

If you keep at it until February, you’ve already outlasted roughly 80% of those that made them.

It’s normal to come into the new year supremely hyped to make changes to our old routines, determined to reach our goals for the year whether that’s in career, finances, health and fitness, etc.

But to keep at it, especially after slipping up and sliding back into unhealthy habits, is another. Before we know it, we’re recycling the same New Year’s Resolution for next year.
How do we deal with failure?
Maybe we can take a lesson from marathon swimmer Diana Nyad.

It’s one thing to swim in unfamiliar, open waters, but another to swim 110 miles through an unpredictable current that happens to be home to jellyfish and sharks.

It’s also one thing to attempt it in your 20s, and another to attempt it in your 60s.

Which is exactly what Diana Nyad sought to accomplish more than three decades later, after a failed attempt during what most would consider your prime.

Now, for us mere mortals, aging does what it does, and athlete or not, your body in your 20s is probably a lot different from your body in your 60s. 

Diana brings up the hare-brained idea of finally completing the more than a hundred mile swim from Cuba to Florida, to her loyal best friend Bonnie Stoll. The feat she had failed to accomplish at 28 years old.
 
As if hearing this plan from her 60-year-old friend wasn’t shocking enough, Bonnie is also asked to coach her.

Bonnie is also an athlete, a former professional racquetball player, and knew they had their work cut out for them.
 
But as with all supportive best friends, Bonnie says yes.
What else do you say to your best buddy who happens to be as strong-willed as you are?

So at 61 years old, Diana took another crack at the swim in August of 2011, with a support team shadowing her on a boat. She fails to complete the route, but in her obsession with achieving her goal, she tries again the next month, September of 2011, to another unsurprisingly failed attempt.

Diana tries it once again in 2012 - and while she covered more distance than the other times, it was a deviant route that brought her just a little over halfway there.
 
Spoiler alert! <Below is the map of all her attempts.>
 
Eventually, she completes the swim on her 5th try, at 64 years old. As she staggered on the shore, in water-wrinkled at the same time chafed skin, with salt drying on her lips, she speaks hoarsely.
“You’re never too old to chase your dreams.”

And she proved, that you aren’t.

If the goal seems daunting…

Start small.
And start where you are.
 
If you’re targeting to join a marathon and you haven’t exercised all year, you’re not going to peel yourself out of the couch one day and join some random marathoners at gun start.

But… you can start wherever you are. You can start simple stretches and exercises while binge-watching a show. You can try brisk walking in your neighborhood.

You can start small. Try jogging for half a mile (800m) then work yourself to a 3K, jog, 5K jog, then so on and so forth.

Fun fact, Diana and Bonnie founded EverWalk, a community that invites people to lead a less sedentary lifestyle through walking.
 
Now in their 70s, and long after the grueling feat of swimming from Havana, Cuba to Key West, Florida, was completed, they are still regularly working on their own health and encouraging others to do so as well.
 
For me, these women are really goals.

Accomplishing a goal, celebrating it, then moving on is one thing, but leading a lifestyle with good habits has more long-term, sustained rewards.
 
Compare having a goal of losing (or gaining) weight for an event, to building a healthy lifestyle for yourself. You can achieve the goal, but after the event, when you go back to your previous diet and lifestyle, and easily lose the health gains just as quickly.

Sustainability is key, which is why we believe that building habits is better. More about building (and breaking) habits in this book: Low-Key Habits.

All the best for the new year!