Subject: To achieve anything in life

Have you ever set a goal and failed to achieve it?


Of course, you have. We all have. And we hate to talk about it. Most of you started to “feel” bad after reading the first sentence.


Well, let’s “flip the script,” as the kids like to say, and embrace the old saying that if at first, you don’t succeed, try, try again. That’s right, the key to success is having tried before.


The key is to learn to “fail faster” and take the lesson into another attempt.


Dr. Fred Hatfield, one of the first individuals to squat over 1000 pounds, identified a failure point and one of the keys to achieving a goal years ago:

In order to achieve ANYTHING in life to the pinnacle of your capabilities, you must 'marry' the thing! Become a 'priest' to it. Live, eat, sleep, and breathe it! You MUST NOT… meander from one routine to another in the false hope that one of them is gonna 'work.' It will not! You may get a quick fix from it, but it'll only be because you re-injected some adaptive stress into your routine.

You must not meander from one routine to another.


Does that sound familiar? A few weeks on one routine and a few on another, thinking that the key to success lies in the next routine. A classic failure point that leads to frustration.


If you fail to achieve something like the Simple standard from S&S, it does not mean it is time to switch routines. It means it is time to reevaluate your training (see the recent article by Brett Jones) while staying married to the program and the goal.


You have learned what did not work and can move forward armed with that knowledge and try, try again…but better.


The S&S program is not a short-term fix. Marry it. Dedicate your training to it and constantly evaluate your training to identify failure points and adjust as needed. Try, try again.

Kettlebell Simple & Sinister—available as book, ebook,
audiobook, and on video