It’s heart-to-heart time. Listen up if you’ve been feeling like less than a rockstar, or maybe comparing your running progress to someone else’s and thinking you just don’t measure up.
You’re not the only one. Seeing other people accomplish things you want to do, but haven’t quite gotten to yet, can hurt. Hanging out with friends that run faster, or just don’t ever seem to struggle with motivation or injury…OMG. They just don’t get it and you come away from every conversation feeling like you might as well just give up.
I feel that way from time to time too. Every other Monday I do a live video chat on Blab (watch the latest one here) with Alison King and Leah Gilbert, both of whom are really accomplished athletes. I was deeply honored to be asked to join this group, but sometimes when we start talking I find myself lost in my own thoughts of “what the hell am I doing here – these women are so much more athletic and knowledgable than I am.”
Unlike Leah and Alison, I’ve never done a marathon. Or an Ironman. Both of these women are so amazing and hearing them talk about their experiences really inspires me. Except when it makes me think that everyone else is just so much more accomplished than I am.
The truth of it is, we can always find someone that is doing more than us, doing it better than us, or makes it look so easy. Someone for whom things just always go the right way, and always has a deep pool of motivation to draw upon to keep them going. And it’s really easy to find ways that we don’t measure up.
But just because it’s easy to find the negative stuff, doesn’t make it true.
Where you focus your energy, things happen. (click HERE to tweet)
In other words, if you focus on the negative all the time, on what you lack, how far you are from your goal, on what isn’t going right…more shit will go wrong. Life will feel harder.
Focus on what’s going well, what you’ve accomplished, how far you’ve come, and what you love about your current life…and I promise more shit will go your way. Life will feel easier.
You could think over and over again about how you came in last in your first half marathon, and feel bad. And not likely to sign up for another one. Embarrassed to tell people, hide the race shirt in the back of your closet.
Or you could think over and over about how freaking cool it is that you trained for a race and finished it. Every step. Even when it was hard, and when you wanted to quit. And you can feel good about that, wear the race shirt with pride, and tell everyone you know. Maybe even sign up for another one and in a couple years you’re no longer last and you’ve inspired 20 other people to run because they want to feel as good as you do.
It’s all in your perspective.
