Failure has always been both a whisper in my ear and the loudest belief I’ve ever held about myself—an unexpected expectation that, no matter how hard I tried or how much I wanted to believe otherwise, always seemed to prove itself true. Confirming, again and again, that I would never be enough.
Every time my worst fears about myself came to life, something inside me broke. Within the fractures of a cracked identity I’d unconsciously created for myself lived pain that compounded—layer upon jagged layer, splintering until it became impossible to tell where one break ended and another began. Each time the world exposed the parts of me I had tried so hard to hide, it became harder to hold the pieces together. Every collapse felt even more familiar than the last—until rock bottom became something I called home.
Recently, as I sat drowning in doubt, shame, and disappointment aimed at myself, I was given a new perspective—one that shifted something fundamental. The words spoken to me were like finding the missing pieces of a puzzle I had spent my entire life trying to finish.
“Rock bottom isn’t fixed.
It moves.
It rises.
Every time I fall, I fall from a higher place than before—
making the landing more painful,
but also creating a space large enough for transformation to take shape.”
For as long as I can remember, I could see the bigger picture. I could make out the lines between each piece, the colors as they blended across that segmented canvas, coming together in the only way that made sense. But no matter how hard I searched, there were always missing spaces—holes in places that made the image feel fragile, like it was about to shatter back into the 10,000 pieces that were chaotically and neatly packaged in the box it came in. It was as if someone had carelessly dumped the pieces on the ground, scattering them so far apart that some were lost entirely. No matter how hard I looked, I never seemed to find the ones that were missing—until they were ready to become part of the bigger picture themselves.
For years, I believed that every failure meant losing everything I had worked for. That I wasn’t just falling short, but that I had never really been getting anywhere at all. Like waking up from a dream that I was in the woods, on an isolated trail that bled the calmness of an early morning run, feeling the kind of loneliness that brings peace instead of sadness, only to realize I’d been running on a treadmill that simulated whatever distance I wanted it to take me—taking me for as many miles as I wanted to go, but also nowhere at all.
I spent my life chasing validation in places that would never give me the missing pieces I was searching for—only the illusion that if I just kept looking a little longer, I might actually find them.
But I wasn’t really looking for validation. I was looking for proof that I wasn’t enough. That I wasn’t lovable. That I wasn’t capable. That I would never be what someone needed enough to keep me, to fight for me, to hold on to me so tightly that I could finally believe they would never let me go.
“I built impossible mountains just to let them crush me.
I imagined crossing finish lines before I even learned how to run.
And each time I fell short, I told myself,
See? You were right. You were never going to be enough.”
Theodore Roosevelt said it best in The Man in the Arena:
“It is not the critic who counts, not the one who points out how the strong man stumbles or how the doer of deeds might have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with sweat and dust and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, if he wins, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
If I were truly a failure, I would have never climbed at all. If I were truly meant to lose, I would have never tried again. And if I weren’t capable of more, my rock bottom wouldn’t be so damn high.
I learned this the hard way. In races. In relationships. In risks I took that didn’t go as I’d expected. The first time I thought I had myself figured out, I was wrong. The first time I thought I was ready, I wasn’t. The first time I thought I could do something without falling, I fell harder than I ever had before.
When I ran the Hennepin 100, I was ready—or so I thought. I trained, I prepared, I did everything I was supposed to do. But I learned, in the most painful way possible, that belief alone isn’t enough. The very things I thought I had under control—hydration, fueling, endurance—were the things that took me down.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t run 100 miles. It was that I hadn’t yet learned how to sustain myself for the entire journey.
And isn’t that the lesson in everything?
- It’s not that I can’t love. It’s that I haven’t learned how to sustain love in a way that doesn’t require me to chase it.
- It’s not that I’m not enough. It’s that I haven’t learned how to recognize my own worth without waiting for someone else to confirm it.
- It’s not that I fail because I’m meant to. It’s that I keep setting the bar so high that failure is the only thing I know how to expect.
But here’s the truth:
Rock bottom isn’t failure.
It’s proof that I’ve already climbed higher than I ever have.
And that means every time I fall, I am already better than the last version of myself who fell countless times before.
So I’m not chasing validation anymore. I’m not searching for proof that I’m not enough. I’m not trying to finish a puzzle with missing pieces.
It’s like this whole time, I’ve been searching for an accurate image of myself in a mirror that’s fogged after a hot shower. No matter how many times I tried to wipe it down, the steam and water made it impossible to see something looking back that wasn’t distorted.
But now?
Now, the fog has cleared.
And I’m standing here, looking at myself exactly as I am—
not broken, not missing anything, not unfinished—
just a puzzle with all its pieces finally coming together.
And for the first time, I don’t need to prove anything to anyone—except the version of me who once thought she’d never make it this far.
Because I did.
I’m here.
I’ve shown up for myself time and time again.
I see my worth.
And I’ll keep showing up, because that’s who I am.
I’m strong. I’m capable. I’m resilient.
And I’m still climbing.
© 2025 Kimberly Beth Thomas. All rights reserved.
This piece is my reckoning with failure—how I’ve worn it like a second skin, and how I’m finally learning that every fall means I’ve already climbed higher than I ever thought I could. What’s your relationship with failure? Do you see it as proof of weakness—or as evidence of how high you’ve already risen?