The Acceptance (Celebration?) of Failure

So maybe you’ve noticed that I occasionally write about Baby Boot Camp and our MOLO (MOther LOve – what kind of acronym is that?) challenge.  Basically, I work out, and I work out hard, three times a week.  The MOLO challenge was designed to get us all to work out more, mostly at home, and to make good nutrition choices. 

 

I don’t work out at home, mostly because I don’t have time to work out at home.  I wear heels and skirts, or at least night pants, to work, so doing a one-minute plank every hour on the hour at the office is not going to happen for me.  As it is, I barely get dinner on the table, get the chores done, and have time to love my children every day – by the time they’re in bed, I slump onto the couch for an hour and every evening I hate myself for not getting up and going for a run or doing a workout video.  It’s a sad fact of motherhood that I am my last priority, and when I have time to be the top priority, I’m beaten down from a long day.  In a way, MOLO has made me feel worse about myself because here are these lists of things we should do, watch, or read every week, including workouts and movies and articles that I don’t have time to do, watch, or read.  I have spent three months with weekly emails and daily messages that seem to scream at me, “You will NEVER be strong or beautiful or a good wife or a good mother because YOU WON’T SACRIFICE ENOUGH DO THIS.”

 

When we do our fitness assessments next week to see how far we have progressed during the past three months, I have little doubt that I will have stayed static at every metric, save the one for weight.  I am pretty sure I have gained weight.  I’m trying to come to terms with that.  My abs are rock hard, I have strong shoulders and legs and arms, but there is a softness over all of it that is not going to go away unless I starve myself or cook myself separate meals from my family and give up some of the things I enjoy, like wine and cheese and chocolate.  And frankly, I’m not willing to do any of that.

 

Another part of the MOLO challenge was a goal that we each set three months ago.  Or many goals.  I honestly have no idea what goals other women in the group set, I only know that I had but one goal: to do a full, unassisted chin-up.  For various reasons, I felt it was a reasonable goal three months ago.  After all, I couldn’t set a goal for losing weight or working out more often (I’m at my limit for workout time, and we’ve already discussed the giving up food thing – still not willing), but I thought that, with work, I could do a chin-up.  Just one.  How hard could it be?

 

Well, I have failed to reach this goal.  I will keep trying, but I’m feeling rather defeated about all of it.  And when I feel defeated, I start to feel defeated about other areas of my life, too.  It’s a terrible spiral of self-hatred that starts in one spot and grows to include every single other aspect of my life ever. 

 

So how do I come to accept failure and move on?  Even better, how can I celebrate who I am and what I do and everything that I have accomplished?  The landscaping and furniture refinishing that I did make time for this winter?  The bubble-blowing with my kids in the back yard instead of the 15-minute standing ab workout video?  The books I’ve read instead of working out at 9 pm every night?

 

I guess it comes back to the giant struggle in my life: how can I love myself for who I am and what I do?  And if I don’t know the answer to that, how can I teach my children to love themselves?