Today, I fell at the gym.
Backwards.
While squatting 62.5kg.
With the bar on my back.
In front of dozens of people.
It happened fast. One second I was bracing, the next I was on the floor. And yeah, it sucked.
But here’s the part I left out at first: I had just taken five days off thanks to a religious holiday - Shavuot. I had also seriously messed with my sleep.
During Shavuot, we stay up all night — that’s the tradition. After that sleepless night, I managed maybe 2–3 hours of rest before I had to be up again. And even though I’ve had two “normal” nights since, my body’s clearly still catching up.
Lack of sleep wrecks your coordination, strength, and stability — and today, it caught up with me under the bar.
I could’ve walked away.
Instead, I picked myself up and kept going.
I still benched 55kg.
I still deadlifted 87.5kg.
Not perfectly. Not dramatically. Just… with persistence.
Nobody laughed. In fact, a few people came over to check on me. It reminded me that we fear falling in public more than the fall itself deserves.
And it also reminded me of this:
When I wake up tired — not just sleepy, but fatigued — I need to listen. I need to give myself grace, not guilt. I wouldn’t have learned that without this mistake.
We all fall.
But if we let those moments teach us something, they’re not failures.
They’re turning points.