For those of you who do not know, I’ve been training to become a Jazzercise instructor. It’s not something that I ever thought I would do, but it became a natural transition. I loved taking the classes. I loved encouraging other women. Why not do both at the same time?

To be honest with you, I thought this would be easy. I had been doing all of the routines high impact, and I’m in the best shape of my life. I pick up choreography fairly easily, and I’m musically inclined. All I had to was submit an application and a video of myself doing a 4 minute routine with 30 seconds of skipping at the end. No problem. I got this.

I trained with Jacqui (the owner of Jazzercise Tyrone) for a couple of months. I practiced the routine video at home. I went to a corporate training class. I was ready. I filmed. I submitted. I waited.

I got rejected.

I couldn’t believe it! I read the e-mail, and I got mad. What do you mean I didn’t do the moves well enough? I felt so deflated, frustrated, defeated. I had put work into it, and it wasn’t enough.

So, I took some time off. The sting of rejection made it hard to be motivated to try again. I wanted to love Jazzercise and teach out of that love, but Jazzercise wasn’t loving me back at the moment.

I also had to take some time to reflect. Failure is always a hard pill to swallow, no matter what age or stage in life. However, how you react to that failure is a reflection of your character. For about a month, I let my character wallow in misery and blame my rejection on the system. “The system wants perfection,” is what I would tell myself.

But that’s not the truth, and I knew that. No one is perfect, and a good program (such as Jazzercise) doesn’t require perfection. It does require professionalism, an ability to learn and be coached, and a habit of correct body form.

I had to humble myself to move past my giant ego and rise to the challenge. I had to learn that it’s not the system that failed, but it was me that failed to meet a certain standard. I did not want to allow this failure to define me as a quitter or someone who couldn’t rise to a challenge.

So I trained harder. Sought out more critiques on my movements. Practiced even when I felt like just sitting on the couch and play games on my tablet. Practiced even when I was tired of taking care of 3 kids, a husband, and a house.

I’m going to tape myself tomorrow to submit with my application. Again. I don’t feel as confident as I did the first time I submitted, but I do feel more qualified.

During one of my practices in the garage, my son was practicing ride his bike. He is struggling to learn to ride a bike without training wheels. I talked to him about not letting his fear of getting physically hurt stop him from trying. Because without trying, he will never be able to DO. Then I shared with him about how I didn’t succeed after my first try either, but here I am, in the garage, practicing til I get it right. I am a strong believer of practicing what you preach.

Have you ever let a failure or rejection stop you from pursuing the next step? I truly believe that pride and fear are the two sources of all of my struggles. I do not want to be defined by them, though. I want to be known as child of Christ, glorifying Him in all that I do, reflecting his unconditional love to me towards others.

With all of this, what am I trying to say? Keep going. Keep trying. Don’t let bumps or hills or mountains get in the way of success. Failure is not the end of the journey. It’s just a pit stop. Don’t let one stop (or two or three or many!) prevent you from success.