Once again, I’ve gone too long without posting
anything. A number of people have asked
me about my progress, so I’ll give a little update, but I still want to give it
in the context of a bigger picture. I'd like to write about the importance of looking forward, especially after failing to reach a goal.
I’ve said it before, as horrible as this injury
has been, it has taught me a lot. And
when I say it’s been a rough ride, I mean it.
It’s probably the first time in my life I’ve experienced genuine
depression. At first, all the extra time
gave me an opportunity to catch up on some things I had put to the back
burner. Work goals, friends, books,
learning new things, etc. I was also
spending the majority of my newfound free time working on my knee, which I’ve
written about in the past.
But unfortunately, at about 9 weeks after my
surgery, I ran into some complications, which I also wrote about briefly. All of a sudden, everything hurt. And it kept getting worse. Despite everyone saying it was “normal” or that
it would resolve, I found myself regressing in my recovery at a rapid
pace. I won’t go into all the details as
to why my progress started to reverse, but needless to say it’s complicated and
hard to pinpoint a specific reason. Most
of my therapy activities and exercises hurt, and pushing through the pain made
it worse. So instead of spending all
these hours on rehab, I spent them throwing myself pity parties.
The part that made dealing with all of this so
bad was that I had already pretty much laid out my entire recovery in my mind. In ACL reconstruction recovery, there are
generally two “protocols” used (plans/timelines for exercises and recovery):
standard and accelerated. Even a lot of pretty good athletes stay on a
standard protocol. At 9 weeks, I was
about 2 weeks ahead of schedule for the accelerated protocol. I was doing things like 60lb walking lunges, weighted
single leg squats, and plyometrics. In
fact, I had set a goal to return to jiu jistu before the end of March. Unfortunately, due to my regression, I failed
to meet that goal.
Which brings me to this topic, dealing with
failure. Everyone fails. Even the most accomplished people have
flopped at something in their lives. The
difference between being successful or unsuccessful is how you deal with that
failure. I know, it’s so cliché, but it’s
so true. Those who can persevere will
accomplish their goals. My problem was
that in my moment of failure, I completely lost sight of my ultimate
goals. Getting better, returning to jiu
jitsu…my mind wasn’t focusing on these things.
It was focusing on the pain, the disappointment, and the helpless feeling
I had.
That last one is really the biggest problem. There’s no shame in being disappointed with
yourself, or just disappointed with the outcome of any given scenario. But feeling helpless, that’s the killer. Because
when you accept that there’s “nothing I can do about it,” you have destroyed
any chance of getting back up after the fall.
With that frame of mind, there is no resolution because none exists. It’s out of your hands. But it’s usually not true. Of course, positive affirmation only goes so
far. I don’t care how much you believe
you can fly, jumping off a building to prove it to yourself is stupid. But that is an unrealistic goal to begin
with. Mine were not. Rehabbing my knee after a dislocation, torn
ligaments, and surgery? That’s far from
impossible. But for a brief period of
time, I convinced myself it was out of my hands…and I sat around, waiting for
it to magically get better.
When this regression started, I was telling a
friend of mine who has a great deal of experience in sports medicine/fitness
how frustrated I was with how much my progress had slowed. She simply responded “slow progress is still
progress.” I wish I had taken that to
heart a little sooner. I wasn’t helpless
to resolve these new issues, I was just disappointed with my situation. I let that sadness lead to hopelessness,
rather than doing the little things that I could
still do. Until you reach your goals, they are in front of you, not behind
you. No matter how good things used to
be, or even how back they were…none of it matters. The main focus should be looking forward to
what you hope to achieve, with the focus on what can be done to get yourself
closer.
I’m happy to say I am refocused, and in a
positive place again. Big things coming
up in the near future, so stay tuned!
