PRIDE: Fear of Failure or Fuel for Success?
“When you want to give up, just think of the people who want to see you fail. Don’t give them that pleasure.”
This was a quote I posted on instagram yesterday, along with this text as I was thinking out loud: “Sometimes you don’t care about failing as long as you can fail privately. But when you realize there are people out there who would actually enjoy watching you fail, laugh at you behind your back and rejoice in your defeat, it’s sometimes just what you need to make you mad enough, hurt deep enough and become determined enough to do whatever it takes to not give them that pleasure! So instead. While it really doesn’t matter what they think, you can use the very thing they mean for harm to fuel you to succeed. So go ahead and hate on me and wish me harm or failure, because it’s exactly what I need to go one more rep, one more step, one more try.”
Later last night, Steve and I had a long chat about this. First, we both agree that you should lose weight, be healthy or try to reach your goals for YOURSELF. Not to prove a point, not to do it for your spouse or not to do it because someone is making you. No. The first reason we work on our fitness is for our OWN good. Agreed?
Fear of Failure or Fuel for Success?
So, the next question was “if you shouldn’t care about what people think, is it wrong to use what they think to fuel you to succeed?” Personally, I don’t think so – as long as you can use it (within reason) for a positive, healthy result.
I know good and well I should care less what people think. We all have haters. No matter how nice you are or how “good” you are, people will dislike you, wish you failure and be happy if you don’t succeed. Why? It stems from jealousy. If you succeed, it is just a reminder of what they could do or have if they tried as hard as you did. When people feel bad about themselves, they don’t want to be around people who actually are happy, healthy or successful. OR, if it’s a rival, sometimes it’s simply because they want all the attention and want to stay on top. Either way, since you will always have these people in your life, you can decide now what type of response you will have. You can A: ignore them (not a bad idea), B: resent them or C: benefit from them. I choose either A or C (depending on the person or situation).
Most of the time I use it to fuel me, to hold me accountable, and to stretch me to do more than I am willing to do. I am extremely lazy by nature. I was born with one extra big lazy bone. While some areas are easy for me to succeed, other areas (like discipline and physical labor) are challenging. So, I have to figure out ways to push myself, to motivate myself and to keep myself pressing forward to my goal. How do I do that? I use one of my character flaws to actually bring about good in my life.
Say hello to pride.
Pride: Good or Bad
Webster defines it as: “a feeling or deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one’s own achievements, the achievements of those with whom one is closely associated, or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired.” There you have it. Pride. Yuck!
Pride is typically referred to as a very negative characteristic, and it’s something I am not proud of at all (no pun intended lol). I can’t particularly say I get deep satisfaction from my own achievements, however I can admit I get deep dissatisfaction with failure. I HATE to fail – so much so, I won’t even try something new if there is a risk of bombing at it. This is something I discovered recently and am working to improve. I am not perfect so I don’t know why I have such high expectations of myself, but I do. Always have.
“It is not good to eat much honey, nor is it glorious to seek one’s own glory.” Proverbs 25:27
I believe it is healthy and normal to have a certain amount of pride and have those proud moments. I can be proud of an accomplishment or take pride in my work. However, if I am full of pride and haughtiness, I think that’s totally wrong. (When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom. Proverbs 11:2). Webster choose these synonyms for prideful: disdainful, haughty, lofty, lordly, superior. And the main antonym for prideful is humble. Another words, you can’t be prideful and humble at the same time, so it’s something you really have to keep in check.
Just like it’s wrong to eat too much “honey” (AKA: food), you can have too much pride. If I’m careful to manage my pride and not focus on the selfish victorious feeling (that deep satisfaction Webster talks about), I can use the very thing that is meant for bad to bring about good in my life. The same way it is not good to care what people think, we shouldn’t not care at all – to the point we lose our drive to be the best we can be. “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize” 1 Corinthians 9:24. The last thing God wants us to do is become complacent, and I think many people say “I don’t care what they think” as a way to stay complacent. Sure, don’t measure your self-worth based on what others think, but why not use their opinions to encourage self-examination and drive to become better?
Some people use competitions to drive them, some use weight loss contests to push them or they even reward themselves with money or shopping. I really don’t have a need to succeed big, I just don’t want to fail big. I love striving for goals, but they are regular normal goals – nothing insane, nothing flashy, just me trying to be the best me.
Accountability
One of the things that drives me is knowing people are counting on me to lead by practicing what I preach. I also know there are people are counting on me to fail. Even Joyce Meyer uses Satan’s desire to ruin her day or damage her ministry to fuel her to do what’s right in good. She calls it giving Satan a ultimate black eye. I love it! Whatever you choose to use to drive you, we could all use a little more accountability.
What drives you? What gets under your skin? What pushes YOU to succeed? Do you train for a race? Do you work towards hitting the stage? Do you exercise to improve skill and compete in physical competitions like CrossFit games or mud runs? Or do you let those nasty mean coworkers of yours fuel you to keep showing up even though they’ve already made fun of your dieting, already reminded you of how many times you failed, told you of all their friends who have “tried that” and it didn’t work, and taunt you with chocolate and fast food? There’s no wrong answer here. You just have to figure out what you need to use to push you to improve and not give up. 🙂
47 Comments
best bodybuilding products
It’s a pity you don’t have a donate button! I’d certainly
donate to this brilliant blog! I guess for now i’ll settle for bookmarking and adding
your RSS feed to my Google account. I look forward to brand
new updates and will talk about this website with my Facebook group.
Chat soon!
Brenda Anderson
Hmm is anyone else encountering problems with the
pictures on this blog loading? I’m trying to figure out if
its a problem on my end or if it’s the blog. Any
feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Paddy o´Brian
I rarely comment, but i did some searching and wound up here
PRIDE: Fear of Failure or Fuel for Success? | PFITblog.
And I do have 2 questions for you if it’s allright. Could it be just me or does it look as if like some of
the comments come across as if they are coming from brain dead people?
😛 And, if you are posting at other online social sites, I’d like
to follow anything fresh you have to post.
Would you make a list of all of your public pages like your Facebook page, twitter feed, or
linkedin profile?
Heather
Simply want to say your article is as astounding.
The clearness in your put up is just spectacular and that
i could assume you are knowledgeable in this subject. Fine
with your permission allow me to clutch your RSS feed to stay up
to date with impending post. Thanks one million and please keep up the rewarding work.
Claude
It’s going to be end of mine day, however before end I am reading this enormous article to improve
my experience.
Homer Bush
Wow, this piece of writing is good, my younger sister is analyzing such things,
therefore I am going to inform her.
Rebecca Parker
Wow, wonderful weblog structure! How lengthy have you ever been blogging
for? you make blogging glance easy. The full glance of your website is excellent,
as well as the content!
Florentina
Hey I know this is off topic but I was wondering if
you knew of any widgets I could add to my blog that automatically tweet my newest twitter
updates. I’ve been looking for a plug-in like this for quite some time
and was hoping maybe you would have some experience with something like this.
Please let me know if you run into anything. I truly enjoy reading your blog and I look forward
to your new updates.
Deborah Harmon
My spouse and I stumbled over here different page and
thought I should check things out. I like what I see so i am just following you.
Look forward to checking out your web page yet again.
Kristi
Hi every one, here every one is sharing these kinds of familiarity, thus it’s pleasant to read this
web site, and I used to pay a visit this website every day.
Vincent
Definitely believe that which you stated. Your favorite reason seemed to be on the net the simplest thing to be aware of.
I say to you, I definitely get irked while people
think about worries that they just don’t know about.
You managed to hit the nail upon the top
and also defined out the whole thing without having side effect
, people can take a signal. Will likely be back to
get more. Thanks
Gloria Turner
I am regular visitor, how are you everybody?
This article posted at this web page is really good.
Kristi Gibbs
I’m extremely impressed with your writing skills and
also with the layout on your blog. Is this a paid theme or did you
modify it yourself? Anyway keep up the excellent quality writing,
it’s rare to see a great blog like this one these days.
Johnnie
Hi! Do you know if they make any plugins to assist with Search Engine Optimization? I’m trying to get
my blog to rank for some targeted keywords but I’m not
seeing very good gains. If you know of any please share.
Cheers!
Paddy o´Brian
I’m very pleased to uncover this web site. I want
to to thank you for your time for this particularly wonderful read!!
I definitely really liked every bit of it and i also have you book-marked to see new information in your website.
Shelly Fox
Hello there, You have done an incredible job. I will certainly digg
it and personally suggest to my friends. I’m confident they will be
benefited from this website.
Georgetta
It’s really a cool and helpful piece of information. I am glad that
you just shared this useful information with us. Please
stay us informed like this. Thank you for sharing.
Henry Perez
Wow that was unusual. I just wrote an incredibly long comment but after
I clicked submit my comment didn’t show up. Grrrr…
well I’m not writing all that over again. Anyhow, just wanted to
say great blog!
Henry Snyder
An outstanding share! I have just forwarded this onto a co-worker who
was conducting a little homework on this. And he in fact bought me
breakfast simply because I discovered it for him…
lol. So allow me to reword this…. Thank YOU for the meal!!
But yeah, thanks for spending time to discuss this topic here on your site.
Erica Clark
hello!,I really like your writing very a lot! percentage
we communicate extra about your article on AOL? I require
a specialist in this house to resolve my problem.
May be that is you! Taking a look forward to see you.
Sean Hayes
Excellent post. I was checking continuously this weblog and I’m inspired!
Very useful information specifically the last section 🙂 I deal with such info much.
I used to be seeking this certain info for a long
time. Thanks and best of luck.
Brenna
Hello! I could have sworn I’ve been to this
site before but after checking through some of the post I realized it’s new to me.
Anyways, I’m definitely delighted I found it and I’ll be book-marking and checking back often!
Earlene
Hi would you mind letting me know which web host
you’re working with? I’ve loaded your blog in 3 completely different web
browsers and I must say this blog loads a lot quicker then most.
Can you recommend a good hosting provider at a reasonable price?
Thank you, I appreciate it!
Danny Roberts
Hi would you mind letting me know which webhost you’re using?
I’ve loaded your blog in 3 different internet browsers
and I must say this blog loads a lot faster then most.
Can you recommend a good internet hosting provider at a reasonable price?
Cheers, I appreciate it!
Patrick Kelly
Right here is the perfect blog for anybody who hopes to understand this topic.
You realize a whole lot its almost hard to argue with you
(not that I really would want to…HaHa). You definitely put a new spin on a subject
that’s been written about for ages. Excellent stuff, just wonderful!
Elbert Bradley
Having read this I thought it was really enlightening. I appreciate you spending some time and effort to put this content together.
I once again find myself personally spending way too much time
both reading and leaving comments. But so what, it was still worthwhile!
Zandra
My spouse and I stumbled over here from a different page and
thought I might check things out. I like what
I see so i am just following you. Look forward to looking at your web page again.
Christa
Wow, incredible weblog format! How lengthy have you
been running a blog for? you make blogging look easy. The overall glance of your web
site is great, let alone the content material!
Christoper
We’re a group of volunteers and opening a new
scheme in our community. Your site offered us with useful information to
work on. You have done a formidable task and our whole neighborhood will be thankful to
you.
Anthony Mitchell
Excellent website you have here but I was wanting to know if you knew of any community forums that
cover the same topics discussed in this article? I’d really like to be a
part of community where I can get feedback from other knowledgeable people that share the same interest.
If you have any suggestions, please let me know. Thank
you!
Sara Edwards
Hello, all is going sound here and ofcourse every one is sharing data,
that’s really excellent, keep up writing.
Lillian Foster
Tremendous issues here. I’m very happy to peer your post.
Thanks a lot and I am having a look ahead to touch you. Will
you kindly drop me a mail?
Sara Edwards
Hey There. I found your blog using msn. This is a very well written article.
I’ll be sure to bookmark it and come back to read more of your
useful info. Thanks for the post. I will certainly
comeback.
Michel
I blog frequently and I truly appreciate your information. Your article has truly
peaked my interest. I’m going to bookmark your website and
keep checking for new details about once a week.
I subscribed to your Feed too.
Paul
Wow, this post is good, my younger sister is analyzing these things, thus I am going to let
know her.
Paddy o´Brian
Appreciation to my father who stated to me concerning this
webpage, this blog is in fact remarkable.
Allen Gill
You can definitely see your skills within the work you write.
The sector hopes for more passionate writers like you who aren’t afraid to mention how they
believe. All the time follow your heart.
Laura
This paragraph is actually a nice one it helps new net visitors, who are wishing for blogging.
Gilbert Mendoza
Your style is so unique in comparison to other people I have read stuff from.
Thanks for posting when you have the opportunity, Guess I will just bookmark this
web site.
Shirley Phillips
Do you have a spam problem on this site; I also am a blogger, and I
was curious about your situation; many of us have created some nice practices and
we are looking to trade strategies with other folks, why not shoot me an e-mail if interested.
Paige Rideout
I Love this post! Thanks Bonnie and Steve!
Danny Roberts
I’ve been exploring for a little bit for any high-quality articles or
blog posts on this kind of area . Exploring in Yahoo I at last stumbled upon this site.
Studying this info So i’m glad to convey that I have a very just right uncanny feeling I came
upon just what I needed. I most indisputably will make sure to do not overlook this website and give it a glance regularly.
Frank Harris
It’s hard to come by educated people about this topic,
however, you seem like you know what you’re talking about!
Thanks
Lula Benson
Hi, I desire to subscribe for this blog
to get hottest updates, therefore where can i do it please help out.
sheila austin
So true…
Thank you Bonnie!
Kat Farres
and where can we get that wonderful shirt Bonnie???? I use many many many things to inspire me to perspire….negativity used to put me in a tail spin, now it gets me out the door to walk the Beast and the Beasties!
oneactivelife
Love it 🙂
Jess x