One Day will be OK

A friend of mine is a professional athlete. They once told me that the secret to their success was their ability to ride roller coasters.

Some days, I struggle with the highs. Other days, I struggle with the lows. It’s all part of the job.

The pros I know rarely talk about the highs. Oh sure, they’ll speak of the glory days when asked. Most of the time, their mind replays their biggest failures.

They think about what they did wrong. They imagine everything they coulda, woulda, shoulda done. They obsess over the tiniest details. And, shame washes over them to the point of physical pain.

Because their biggest mistakes are made on the biggest stage, there is no place to hide. They must be gracious in their defeat while everyone is watching and asking:

WHY?! Why did this happen?

It is a question that can’t be answered. So, we make up a story. We talk about the coulda, woulda, shoulda. We talk about next time. We talk about moving forward.

We hope other people will forget the mistakes we made. But we never do. Our minds won’t let us.

There is a reason we can’t let the lows go. Our brains are learning machines designed to fix mistakes even when they are unfixable. Our obsession with failure is our brain’s way to ensure continuous improvement. We are human. When we know better, we do better.

The coulda, woulda, shoulda is how our brains learn. The replay is necessary to rewire. And it hurts. Alarm bells keep ringing throughout the day and night. There is no escape from the blaring message of:

Don’t do that again!

The booming pain never goes away until one day. One day will be OK.

One day, we will simply say we made a mistake. One day, we will take full responsibility for everything that happened. One day, we will stop making up stories.

One day will be OK. Our nervous system will eventually shut off the alarms. One day, we will take in a deep breath and let out a longer, deeper exhale. And, we will finally be OK.

But not yet and not now.

For now, we will use our mistakes as fuel to drive harder, faster, and stronger. We know the alarm bells in our head save us from repeated mistakes. And we know life is too short to ask: WHY?

The pros I know tell me they are saving their OK days for retirement. The game of life is a roller coaster filled with highs and lows. It’s a game the pros want to play as long as humanly possible.

High-level athletes and high-caliber people rarely have (or want) an OK day. They know the lows are for learning. They know:

One day will be OK. But not yet and not now. Now is the time to create our glory days.