Redefining Failure: Why Flexible Thinking Wins in Fitness and Nutrition

Mindset
Written By Leanne de Groot
 

What if failure wasn’t the end — but an invitation?
When it comes to exercise and nutrition, most of us have been taught to fear failure. One missed workout or "off-plan" meal feels like falling off the wagon completely. But the truth is, failure is not falling off.

Failure is refusing to adapt.

Drawing inspiration from Robin Upshon, Sam Webster, and John C. Maxwell’s sights on mindset, today we’re flipping the script on failure — and showing you how flexible thinking can transform it into your most powerful teacher.

The Old Story of Failure:
For decades, health culture has promoted "all-or-nothing" thinking:

  • Stick to the plan perfectly, or you're failing.

  • One indulgence ruins your diet.

  • Missing a day at the gym means you've lost momentum.

This black-and-white mindset triggers shame, guilt, and eventually, giving up altogether. It's rigid, it's punitive, and it doesn’t fit the complexity of your real life — where caregiving, work demands, emotional upheavals, and energy shifts are daily realities.

The New Story: Flexibility Over Failure
Upshon, reminds us that when we encounter setbacks, our nervous system often locks down into survival mode. But cultivating adaptability helps us move into a growth mindset, seeing setbacks as natural, manageable, and even beneficial.

Applied to health:

  • A missed workout becomes a prompt to explore a shorter or different type of movement.

  • An emotional eating episode becomes an opportunity to deepen self-compassion and uncover deeper needs.

  • A plateau in progress becomes an invitation to shift your approach, instead of abandoning your goals.

In this mindset, "failure" is just feedback. Nothing more.

How to Practice Flexible Thinking in Your Health Journey:

  • Detach from Perfection: Focus on progress, not flawless execution.

  • Zoom Out: One choice doesn’t define you. It's your overall trajectory that matters.

  • Learn to Reframe: Ask, What can I learn from this? How can I adapt?

  • Anchor to Values: Remember WHY you want health — for vitality, joy, generosity — not to meet rigid standards.

Closing Thought:
Imagine a health journey where every misstep strengthened your resilience instead of eroding your confidence. Imagine flexibility, creativity, and kindness guiding your nutrition and fitness — instead of punishment and shame.

This is the future you can create with a flexible, adaptable mindset.
You are capable of extraordinary, imperfect, sustainable success. 🌿

Let's step into it — together.

 
Leanne de Groot

My contribution is a union of nutrition, mindfulness, meditation, breathwork & movement intertwined with behaviour change and how it impacts a life worth living.

As a health and fitness professional, I want to shift the paradigm toward one of self-love and self-care instead of an aesthetic insecurity-based industry. Let’s move away from the trail of being overweight, body shape dissatisfaction, the daily dose of pharmaceutical and social drugs, persistent envy, unhappiness, anxiety, depression, and a life full of pressure to keep up, skip steps, and rush.

Living without awareness and intention creates pressures that we are not doing, we are not moving fast enough, as bosses, workers, weekend warriors, friends, lovers, parents, siblings, or grandparents. We have to be able and willing to step outside the pull of unhealthy and unhealthful cultural norms and make the critical space to do our meaningful thinking.

The first thing I need people to take in is if they are going to work with me or read my work because for me this re-frames the core of moving through all obstacles we have around stress, rush, health, weight, etc … The very blantant truth is that living under the guise of society’s expectations - is not living.

We have been fed a narrative that stepping outside or away from norms is the wrong way to exist and this narrative furthers unhappiness, unhealthiness, pressure, and a life that is too fast to enjoy.

Wherever we are, this is life—it’s happening right now, and I’ve decided that I am not going to rush through it and I invite you to join me today …

https://www.bodyfuel.org
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Unlock Your Health Potential: Build an Adaptable Mindset for Nutrition and Fitness Success