“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.” - Thomas Edison

If you’re brave enough to regularly set challenging diet and fitness goals for yourself you’re bound to fail at some point. Despite your best efforts you missed your 5K time, your monthly weight loss goal, or your cholesterol level goal.

How people deal with failure is a key difference that distinguishes the successful from the unsuccessful. A lot of people experience a feeling of “I’ll never get it right”, “It is not possible!”, or “It’s not fair!”. A feeling of no control clouds the mind.

I always feel this way initially. I have to give myself some time to wallow in self pity then shake myself and try to take something positive out of the situation. The past is over and the future hasn’t happened, what are you going to do right this moment to mold your future?

In this post I’ll summarize three actions I take whenever I fail that might work for you. These recommendations are clearly not confined to fitness goals and failures, I use them whenever I miss the mark. You should write your responses down and carry them out as systematically as possible — hit the Stand By button on your emotions.

You cannot control what happens to you but you can control how you react to what happens.

1. Dissect why it is you failed

Be as objective as possible even though it might be painful. Try to think of it like a 3rd person observer.

If you are not sure why you failed, then, ask yourself “What am I afraid the problem is?” Then think about that reason.

Also, the reason you didn’t meet your goal might not have to do with your actual performance and have more to do with your goal. Were you aiming too high? Were you aiming at the wrong thing?

Ask someone who knows you well, like your significant other, why they think you didn’t meet your goal. Tell them to be as objective as possible and not candy-coat it.

2. What can you learn

Based on your list of reasons from #1, list what you can learn from it.

Act as if you are writing an email to a friend. They are trying to accomplish what you failed to but you don’t want to discourage them, tell them what you learned. For example, I didn’t meet my January goal for weight loss. I would probably say “It’s impossible to lose 15lbs in a month in a healthy manner but setting a goal like this did keep me focused. Focus and motivation, I’ve learned, are the keys to losing weight and getting healthy. If you don’t have motivation to achieve what you want, you will not achieve it. And if you don’t remind yourself daily — if not several times a day — then you will lose focus and stumble.”

3. Plan

Re-evaluate your goal and based on #1 and #2 set a new goal.

Re-evaluate the reasons you want to achieve this goal. Identify specific things that you need to do or not to do this time in order to succeed. Focus on success in this step, this is very important. You want to, just for a moment, pretend like you don’t care if you fail at all and that you know you’re capable of succeeding at this. Even if you don’t believe it, you can pretend, right?

Imagine what it would feel like to do the things that you have planned. Imagine yourself going to the gym and weight training 3 times a week and running before work each day. Imagine how you would feel next month if you did this for four weeks straight. Even if you didn’t gain an ounce of muscle or lose a gram of fat, how would you feel? As my mother says, in a month from now it will be a month from now whether you do it or not.

Write down your new goal, tell people about, and take time to focus on what you can do to succeed at that goal each day.

Framing a problem as “What am I going to do about it?” is always a good way to get yourself in a more optimistic mood. The next step is to do something. Anything, do something that will get you nearer to your goal right away.