Failure and Sculpting Individuality

We are destined to fail. As we grow up we become more knowledgeable of worldly events that only remind us how small of an impact we personally have in our universe. We learn more and more about people who have accomplished so much more in their lives and become a sort of ideal or blueprint to how we wish to lead our lives. The moment we have ideals, heroes, or idols we look up to and wish to one day be as great as they are, we will begin to carve a road of failure. This, however, is not a bad thing. Each and every one of us are different, with different concerns, levels of appreciation, how we go about getting things done, and which people or ideals we admire. This will then begin a process of becoming unique individuals from anyone else. For example, I will always look up to people such as John Wooden and Jack Daniels for their coaching pedagogy. My chances of becoming as successful as them or handling things just like them will be extremely slim to none. This is why I stated we are destined to fail. We are our own biggest critique and no matter how much other people tell us we have succeed, we have built up our ideals and heroes in our mind so high that we can never possibly amount to them.

This is what the greatest and most successful people do. They battle through knowing they have not achieved their dream and begin to sculpt their own individuality. By this I mean that although I may never coach Olympic level runners or coach teams to ten National Championships, I will sculpt my own path that demonstrates my unique individuality and ultimately show true creation. We must never be afraid of falling short of our ideals and heroes, we must only battle through and come to the realization that becoming ourselves is the single best accomplishment we will achieve and failing while chasing your ideals is never a failure at all.