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Don't Be Afraid to Fail: Dr. Sean Burkhart's Key Advice

Hey everyone, Dr. Sean Burkhart here. This is an awesome question from Michael. What is your single best advice in life? It's always tough to pick a single of anything. What's your favorite movie? What's your favorite song? But what I'll say, my single best advice in life is failure is not a bad word. Failure is an opportunity to learn and to grow. So when you look, there's many different acronyms of failure. So first attempt in learning, right? I think everyone gets a little bit worried that we're not going to be good enough and we will never know that until we push ourselves to our limits. And if we hit our limit and we fail, all that says is this is as far as we can go right now, but we can still learn from that and we can progress. So in like the realm of strength and conditioning, we lift as much on a lift as we possibly can and we hit a certain weight where we can't do it anymore. That's actually where body adaptation comes in and that's why sometimes the next lift you hit your personal record. So my single best advice in life is don't be afraid to fail and if you have to fail, just fail forward fast. Learn from your mistakes and keep pushing forward.

My single best advice in life is don't be afraid to fail and if you have to fail, just fail forward fast. Learn from your mistakes and keep pushing forward.

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My single best advice in life is not to fear failure. Failure is not a bad word; it's an opportunity to learn and grow. When facing challenges, remember that failure can be seen as a first attempt in learning. It's natural to worry about not being good enough, but we never truly know our limits until we push ourselves. If we reach our limit and fail, it simply means that is as far as we could go at that moment. However, there is still room for growth and progress through learning from our mistakes. In the realm of strength and conditioning, hitting a weight we cannot lift anymore triggers body adaptation, and often leads to reaching personal records in subsequent lifts. Therefore, my single best advice is to embrace failure, fail forward fast, learn from mistakes, and keep pushing forward.

Name something you used to believe in but have now changed your views on?

Discovering the Goldilocks Spot: The Truth about Overtraining

What's up everyone? I really appreciated this next question. Name something you used to believe in but now have changed your views on. So in the realm of strength and conditioning I used to think more was absolutely better and now I know that's absolutely not the case. So depending what your intention or your goal is using strength and conditioning you want to train to be able to accommodate that goal. If you underdo it you might fall short of it but if you overdo it you also might fall short of it. You got to remember your body needs to adapt and it needs specific training to achieve something. That is how we determine dosage. Same thing with medicine, same thing with physical rehab. If you don't do enough you don't get a result. If you do too much you might not get a result but when you find that sweet Goldilocks spot in the middle that is the just right spot. And I have to remind myself daily about this and that's why I really appreciated the question because we always want to put the effort in. Remember train smart not hard. When you understand why you're doing something then your training can actually reflect accomplishing a goal and not necessarily doing more will make you hit that goal any faster. Sometimes they can actually slow you down.

I used to believe that more is better in strength and conditioning but now know that you have to find the sweet spot of training to achieve a goal.

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I want to address a question that I found really interesting: Name something you used to believe in but have now changed your views on. In the realm of strength and conditioning, I used to believe that more training was always better. However, I've come to realize that's not the case. The key is to align your training with your specific goals. Underdoing it might lead to falling short, but overdoing it can also hinder progress. It's important to remember that our bodies need time to adapt and require specific training for desired outcomes. This is how we determine the appropriate dosage. The same principle applies to medicine and physical rehabilitation. Finding the sweet spot, the just right level of effort, is crucial. I remind myself of this daily. It's not about training hard for the sake of it; it's about training smart. When you understand why you're doing something, your training becomes purposeful and goal-oriented. Simply doing more doesn't necessarily accelerate progress; sometimes, it can actually slow you down.

Failure: A Gateway to Growth and Success

Hey everyone, Dr. Sean Burkhart here. My question is, what does failure mean to you? Well, there's lots of different acronyms for fail. The one I always remember is first attempt in learning. So to me, failure is an opportunity to face whatever I'm fearing head on. It's a way to quickly learn what works versus what doesn't. So it's literally an opportunity for growth. And in a team environment, when you happen to fail something as an individual, you could do your own download and kind of go over what went right, what went wrong, and how to evolve. In a team environment, you quickly learn from other people, do they embrace it and do they share the same values? So it helps you to kind of find your tribe of people that share those same values. And even as an example, like in the strength conditioning world, if I'm trying to increase my strength or increase my size, I have to lift up to my limit. And sometimes when I hit that limit, I'm not going to actually succeed at it, but I'm still touching base on that heavy lift. So my body gets the opportunity to adapt and recover. So the next time I come back, I might be stronger and I might hit that lift. So failure to me is an opportunity to face my fears and a quick opportunity to learn what's right with that situation, what's wrong with that situation, and how to evolve and make it better the next time.

Failure is an opportunity to face fears and quickly learn what works and what doesn't. It's also a way to find people who share the same values and to make progress towards goals.

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To me, failure is an opportunity for growth and learning. I see it as the first attempt in learning, an acronym I always remember. When faced with failure, I embrace it as a chance to confront my fears head-on. It allows me to quickly discern what works and what doesn't. In a team environment, failure provides an opportunity to learn from others who share the same values. It helps me find my tribe of like-minded individuals. For instance, in the strength conditioning world, pushing myself to the limit and occasionally failing at a heavy lift still benefits me. It gives my body a chance to adapt and recover, so I can come back stronger and potentially succeed the next time. Failure, therefore, is an opportunity to learn from the situation, identify areas for improvement, and evolve to make things better in the future.

What inspired you to pursue a career in helping others through chiropractic care?

Meeting a Mentor: Inspiring Pursuit of Chiropractic Care

All right, so the question is what inspired me to pursue a career in helping others through chiropractic care? This is kind of similar to a previous question I got. So I discussed meeting a mentor while I was pursuing education in physical therapy school and this particular mentor helped me to look outside of PT school and explore other modalities, other disciplines that would be potentially helpful. And he told me his story about how he could help people to a specific point and then when he integrated chiropractic care that they became so much better. And I'm sure if you speak with chiropractors there's going to be those people that say, hey chiropractic helped so much, but when we integrated physical therapy or allopathic medicine it helped them so much more. So the inspiration that helped me go to chiropractic school was a particular individual who is very, very, very intelligent that was willing to look outside of what he practiced in order to find answers to help other people. That lesson alone inspired me to start to research what chiropractic is, visit certain schools, and then I ended up going that route and actually learning chiropractic. So what really inspired me was a person, but the lesson that he taught me was that we always don't have all the answers within one discipline. It sometimes takes a team and if you don't have a team you can continue to learn outside what you like to practice or what you are practicing which could help others. So that's my answer.

I was inspired to pursue a career in chiropractic care by a mentor who taught me the importance of looking outside of my discipline for answers. He showed me that sometimes it takes a team to help people and that I should continue to learn outside of what I practice to help others.

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What inspired me to pursue a career in helping others through chiropractic care was meeting a mentor while I was studying physical therapy. This mentor encouraged me to explore different modalities and disciplines beyond PT. He shared his story about how integrating chiropractic care made a significant difference in helping people. It inspired me to research chiropractic, visit schools, and ultimately choose that path of learning. The lesson I took away from this experience was that we don't always have all the answers within one discipline. Sometimes it takes a team approach or learning outside of our primary practice to truly help others. So, it was the inspiration from that individual and the valuable lesson learned that led me to pursue chiropractic as a career in helping others.

Do you spend much time comparing what you are doing to what others are doing?

Dr. Sean Burkhart: From Comparison to Learning

Hey everybody, Dr. Sean Burkhart here. Chris asked an awesome question that made me do like 20 takes on this. He says, do you spend much time comparing what you are doing to what others are doing? It actually made me think a lot. I used to compare and now I look into what they're doing more as a research component. When I was early on in my career, I had, I just felt inadequate. You know, I wanted to compare myself to others to make me feel better about what I was doing. What you learn is, you know, in my profession as a new doc, you're going to have to get your feet wet a little bit. You're going to make mistakes. You're going to really spend a lot of time in practice learning a lot of new things that you never learned in school. So initially I would actually compare myself. Now I just research what other people are doing because I want to see, are they doing something that I already do more efficiently? Are they doing something that I don't even know about? So I go at it with a different intent, not out of feeling inadequate, not wanting to play the measuring stick game, but really wanting to better myself. And there are people out there that you can still learn from. And I hope to do that. And that's why actually, and one of the reasons I'm on this app is to speak with other experts and see if I can increase my efficiency with what I do, whether that's in answering a question or in my practice. So the short answer again, I used to compare, but now I want to learn from people.

I used to compare myself to others in order to feel better about my own performance, but now I do research on other people's work to better my own.

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Chris asked a great question: Do you spend much time comparing what you are doing to what others are doing? Initially, I used to compare myself to others, feeling inadequate and seeking validation for my work. However, over time, I've shifted my mindset. Now, instead of comparing, I research what others are doing as a way to learn and improve myself. I look for more efficient approaches or explore new techniques that I may not be aware of. My intent is no longer driven by insecurity or the need for a measuring stick. Rather, it's about self-improvement and learning from experts in the field. Being on this app allows me to connect with other professionals and enhance both my answers and my practice. So, in short, while I used to compare myself to others, my focus now is on learning from them.

Conquer your day with routines and consistency

Hey Isaac, Dr. Sean here. I really appreciated your question. It's open-ended so I like that I can just kind of flow with it. How do you conquer your day? So the two things that I do to really tackle my day are one, build a routine and sometimes I might vary from that routine but the outline is always the same so it gives me direction to go through my day. So when you can own the day you can repeat it the next day. So all of a sudden big goals don't seem so big when you're making consistent strides and that's actually my second answer is consistency. Just keep grinding it out. You don't have to start by setting the standard way up here. Like I said you can build a routine, you can start small but remaining consistent and actually grinding forward really helps to conquer the day and once you conquered one day you can repeat it the next day so then you conquered the week, you conquered the month, you conquered the year. So I'd say routines are great. Don't be so hard on yourself if you initially deviate because as you remain consistent it's just going to become more natural. So I appreciate the question. I can't wait to hear your answer.

To conquer your day, build a routine and remain consistent.

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To conquer my day, I focus on two key strategies. Firstly, I establish a routine that provides me with a clear direction for the day. While I may make slight variations, having a consistent outline helps me stay on track and make consistent progress toward my goals. This approach allows me to break down big goals into manageable steps, making them less overwhelming. Secondly, I prioritize consistency. It's not necessary to start with lofty standards right away. By building a routine and remaining consistent in my efforts, I steadily move forward and conquer each day. This approach enables me to repeat successful days and extend that success into weeks, months, and years. It's important to remember that deviations from the routine are natural at times, but staying consistent will make it easier over time. Thank you for the thought-provoking question, and I look forward to hearing your perspective as well.

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Physician disclaimer

Dr. Sean Burkhardt,DC,FIBFN-FN,CCSP,CFMP,CSCS,CSPS,TSAC-F,PES,CES answers your Chiropractic questions. See all the advice Dr. Sean Burkhardt,DC,FIBFN-FN,CCSP,CFMP,CSCS,CSPS,TSAC-F,PES,CES has and get answers to your own Chiropractic questions.

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Dr. Sean Burkhardt is a Certified Chiropractic Sports Practitioner, a Board-Certified Functional Neurologist, a Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner, and a triple-certified Strength and Conditioning Coach with the National Strength and Conditioning Association. He serves as a mentor and coach for an NGO helping prepare active and future military for special operations.  He has dedicated his postgraduate education to increasing his breadth and depth of knowledge in clinical neuroscience, concussion management, neurochemistry & nutrition, strength & conditioning, functional medicine, and neurological rehabilitation to help you achieve optimal health of optimal human performance. 