Success. What is it? What does it mean? If success is defined as being the ‘accomplishment of an aim or purpose’, if someone were unable to achieve a specific aim or purpose, would their efforts be a ‘failure’?

Increasingly I’m coming to the view that much like goal setting, success needs to be defined in terms of both process(or input) and output. In terms of output based success, I could say I want to add 10kg to my squat; meaning I will only be successful if I achieve the desired outcome, or ‘output’. Given various things that have happened, it seems pretty unlikely I’ll be adding 10kg to my squat come testing week, which made me think ‘I’ve failed’. However, if I define success in a more process based way (ie doing all the right things to try to build my squat (doing my lifts, accessory work, mobility, rest, recovery, etc)) I can be successful on THIS level. I may not be totally successful (in terms of achieving both output and process/input success), but I CAN be partially successful. Equally, whilst someone may ‘get lucky’ and add 10kg to a lift without following any particular process (newbie gains come to mind!), I’m convinced that the greater the process/input success, the greater the likelihood of output success.

Positive spin or actual belief? Being the cynical sort I all too often am, there’s a very real part of me that would probably find myself thinking “you’re just trying to make yourself feel better” if I were to read the above. You know what? Maybe there’s some truth to that. But, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, provided you’re not using the ‘divided model of success’ as a cop out for not continuing to seek success on both levels. What, if any point is there in thinking or feeling ‘I totally failed’? Don’t get me wrong, failure is definitely still possible – don’t do all that you should in terms of inputs, don’t do all that you should in terms of outputs, and you’ve got failure. However, unless you’ve done absolutely nothing, you will experience partial failure. Personally, I haven’t done everything I could (and should) have done in terms of gymnastics training. I’ve done a lot more than I have previously, but I haven’t done all of it; partial success, partial failure with plenty of room to improve and increase the probability of complete success.

Ultimately, success on one level is good, but success on both levels is better.