What is Failure?

To me, failure is not achieving your goals. Again, since my blog is about "how to pole vault" I will share one of my pole vault failures. At our very first meet of the season this year I only cleared opening height (7ft). I consider this a failure because I should be clearing well above that since my PR (personal record) is 9ft. Lack of practice and not being ready to compete lead to this failure. The picture below is of Holly Bleasdale as she is unable to clear her height at the 2012 Olympics. This is a failure because she did not achieve her goal in clearing the height she needed to clear.

This photo was taken from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympics/article-2184709/London-2012-Olympics-Athletics--Perri-Shakes-Drayton-misses-400m-hurdles-final.html


I am more motivated by failure than success. Failure motivates me because it makes me strive even harder to achieve my goals. If I am always successful than I will not work as hard to achieve my goals because I will have gotten accustomed to being successful and would just expect it.