Standing Back Up

It seems we might lose another role model for our children. World famous cyclist, Lance Armstrong, was stripped of his seven Tour De France titles.

After an extensive investigation by the United States Anti-Doping Agency, they discovered “the USPS Team doping conspiracy was professionally designed to groom and pressure athletes to use dangerous drugs, to evade detection, to ensure its secrecy and ultimately gain an unfair competitive advantage through superior doping practices. A program organized by individuals who thought they were above the rules and who still play a major and active role in sport today.”

Lance Armstrong has not fought the discipline implemented, but continues to claim that he did not cheat. That’s a difficult stance to take with eleven team members testifying against him. Tired of fighting accusation after accusation, he just decided to stop fighting.

This blog isn’t about Lance Armstrong’s guilt or innocence, but about how the world seems to focus on the wrong side of a person’s failings. As a nation we seem to be hyper-focused on other’s failures. Its the focus of multimillion dollar magazines: “What celebrity is falling off the pedestal this week?”

Maybe our focus on other’s failings takes the focus off of our own. It’s a short term focus that never leads to personal success.

We all fail. I believe the measure of a person is not found in how they fail, but in how they stand back up and remain standing. True success isn’t the absence of personal failure, it is achieved by knowing how to overcome failure.

When you run into failure, take the fast track back to success:

1. Admit your mistakes and seek forgiveness.

2. Learn the necessary lesson(s) and adjust your behavior.

3. Expect some people to live in the past of your failure.

4. Refuse to live in the past.

5. Surround yourself with people who want to see you succeed.

6. Keep moving forward toward your goals.

The road to success is filled with many temptations to cheat. If you give in and cheat, it doesn’t define who you are, it only defines your actions at that moment. Your character will, however, define how you stand back up.

There is life after failure, even cheating; but that life will be determined by how well you stand back up, and how well you remain standing.