Choosing Self-sabotage

I truly believe that when you are ready to listen, things present themselves that speak to you. Like accidentally finding the perfect blog post or tweet that it exactly what you needed to read. this has happened to me twice in the last week.

Firstly, I came across a Michelle Bridges 12wbt video this evening about self-sabotage. It started me thinking about the journey I am taking, and the difficulties I am having. Lately I have been putting only fifty percent effort into my health and running. I have been tired and only fitting in one or two exercise sessions per week and eating well during the day and struggling in the evenings. My intentions have been in the right place, but my actions are telling a different story.

I am making excuses. I am sabotaging my success.

Secondly, I am a regular follower of Gisele Gambi's Personal Coaching Facebook page. Her words of wisdom always resonate with me. She is an insightful and spiritual person and she has the ability to get to the deep core of an issue with such ease and love.

Gisele talks a lot about choice, and being aware of what you are choosing. When things do not go to plan, have you actually been choosing what you thought you were choosing, or was it something else entirely? While on one level I believe that I want to run and have my running goals planned out, I do not believe I am choosing to succeed in my running.

Whenever I attempt to work my way towards a goal, something always happens to ensure that I almost don't make it. Whatever the goal is, or was, I can find struggle, crisis after crisis, or simply getting behind in my work or plan, finding small reasons to halt my progress until it is almost too late.

I am choosing to struggle. I am choosing to fail. All my choices, whether food or exercise related are largely aimed at giving me an excuse not to be successful. I ate too much last night so there is no point going for a run.I know what I should do, I know what I wan tot do, so why don't I do it?

Having a honest and hard look at myself, I came to the conclusion that I don't believe that I can succeed.

And when you don't believe that you can, you go a long way to ensure that you won't.

The video and the posts I have read this week have given me an insight into what I have been doing. Maybe I was just ready to listen, but I now know that I need to re-examine my beliefs about myself and get them in line with my goals. I don't yet know how, but I know a shift is needed.

9km done and dusted!

Yesterday I was worried about achieving my goal of 9km (or rather following the 12wbt half marathon running program). But today, with a few minor setbacks, I did it!

I woke up this morning and it was pissing pouring down. Typical! The same thing happened a few weeks ago when I signed up for the 7km Sun Run- that day I stayed in bed. Today, with time on my side, I waited a couple of hours until about 1030am. Then off I went. Sometimes I am really worried about whether I will make the distance, but this morning, for whatever reason, it did not enter my mind.

I have done the track before and measured it on my GPS so I knew where the 9 km mark was. All was going well. I used a few little tricks to get my mind of the running, i.e. timing myself from one landmark to the next. I estimated that I was more than half way there, and the track suddenly ended with a sign "path under construction, due to reopen in 2014". I loved that path! Tranquil, in the bush, no cars in sight! The only thing I could do was  turn around and run back the way I had come.

At that point I had to change tack and measure my run in time rather than distance. The actual program says "60imns or 9km run", so it became a clock-watching episode. And for me there is nothing worse. Time goes so slowly when you are in pain (a little exaggeration, but I was a little slower and sorer than at the start). My podcasts were helping, I find these much better to listen to than music because it gives me a story to concentrate on, rather than to tune out which is what happens with music.

60 minutes finally came, and even though I have no idea what actual distance I ran, I achieved what I set out to achieve- to be able to complete the long run of the Week 1 half marathon program. Only 11 weeks to go!

Rx

New inspiration to run

In November last year, I was running 10km, I had reached my goal and was feeling great. Better than great! Absolutely on top of the world!

But then I stopped. An infected toenail meant that it hurt to run, so I stopped. What should have been a small break led to two months of not running. My fitness suffered, but my motivation and belief in my abilities suffered much more. I stopped being motivated in all my exercise. I did not stop everything, but I felt stagnant. Unmotivated. Uninspired.  It was not a nice place to be.

Then a couple of days ago I heard an interview on the radio with aerial skier and Olympian Alisa Camplin. When she started she was not even a skier, she was a gymnast but decided she could have a chance at succeeding in aerial skiing. So she wrote out a list of goals for the following year, and went about working towards those goals. Each year she revised those goals and kept on going, eventually winning gold in 2002 and bronze in 2006. Her motto is NO REGRETS. Do everything you have to do to succeed so that you won’t ever have to think “what if…..”

That evening, I sat and wrote a list of my goals for 2013. I need to run again. I need to feel elated as I did when I ran 10km. But this time I am setting my sights higher.



This year I am going to run a marathon.

I don’t care if I am starting at the beginning again. I take responsibility for the fact that I stopped running, for my fitness declining, for my ability to only run 2km at the moment (yes, I did say my fitness has suffered!!). I take responsibility for where I am now. I did it, I can’t blame anyone else. But I am starting again. I have a list of training goals that take me back to 10km, then to a half marathon, and then eventually to a full marathon. It will take effort and determination. It will take over six months. It may take injury management, but I will do what I can to make it in one piece.

I am so excited! I hope you will join me on my journey, with all its slow steep inclines, with a few fast downhills, and hopefully with some amazing scenery along the way.

Happy travels

xx

Goal achieved!

On Sunday I ran 10km non-stop. I set this goal 9 weeks ago and was due to complete it
within 12 weeks, but on Sunday I decided to run a different path that I thought would be about
8.5km. It ended up 10km. So with 3 weeks to spare..... I did it!

The entire day I was on an emotional high. 9 weeks ago I never thought I could do it
(well, not never, but it was hard to imagine). Back then running 2km non-stop was hard. Then 3km
was hard, 5 then 6 then 10. It was all hard, but 10km was no harder to run than 2km, I
just got better at running it, fitter, stronger. I got into the rhythm of running.

Maybe that's the same with any goal. It's always hard, you would not call it a goal
if it was easy to achieve, but "hard" seems to stay relative. For example, when I was at uni, it was
hard, but 1st year exams were relatively as hard as 3rd year exams. Of course 3rd year
exams are harder, but I knew more in 3rd year as opposed to knowing nothing in first
year. It's all relative!!

So, what if nothing was "too hard"? What could be achieved if you accepted that it would
be hard at the start and hard near the end, and that the journey would be  mostly
bearable? Would that knowledge disolve some if the fear surrounding seemingly
unachievable dreams and make them appear more achievable?

It has me thinking......

What could I achieve if any goal was as hard as the next? Would I set my  standards
higher? Would I give everything I dreamed of a go? Would I stop wasting time and just
go for it?

Maybe it's time for me to give everything I've ever dreamed if going a good and
thorough attempt. How hard can it really be?

I believe it would not be as hard as expected.

Changing Habits

I have been away for over a month- totally inexcusable!

But in that time, I have been productive, so productive I stopped blogging! I have

• Been following a 10 km running program, and am up to 7km- 8 weeks ago I thought this was impossible
• Been starting up a new business, trying to get my website content written for when I go live.
• Started a new course for work so that I can change the work I do. This will help me transition to my new business.
• Started training for the 50km night walk for Coastrek 2013- I'm team leader for the Tireless Trekkers. Last year I completed the 100km walk (our group came in second!) but I don't want to risk another fractured foot this year, so the 50km trek is what I've chosen to complete.
• Been spring cleaning and decluttering my home to be better organised when I start my new business- its a constant work in progress.

I've also been not-so-productive and have started some not-so-good habits! I have

• Been sleeping too much- i.e.Ive done a few hours of cleaning and tidying, surely its time for a nap!
• Woken up multiple times during the night, so of course I deserve a sleep in (after taking children to school)!
• Been studying at 2am in the morning, sometimes til 5am which further interrupts my sleep and gives me another excuse to sleep in later.
• Been less than firm with my lovely puppy and let him sleep in my room, on my bed, in my bed. This is very very very hard to admit to!!!
• Scheduled in exercise in the morning, put on my exercise gear, then choose to nap instead! Then missed out because I was busy in the afternoon.
• Made excuses not to do my business work.

These are not new habits, they have just developed a life of their own at the moment. If I don't address them soon, the end of the year will come and I will have no website, no business and still be feeling hideous due to poor sleep habits! I am a life-long procrastinator and need to JFDI, so today I have woken at 6am, was up and showered by 7am and at work by 8am. Not a bad effort for Day 1, but it has me thinking of the other things I need to do.....

I obviously need a plan. To change a habit, you need to replace it with a good or better habit. So my habit of sleeping erratically is going to be replaced with going to bed at a reasonable time and getting up between 6am and 7am and not going back to bed. Procrastinating may be replaced by a timetable of activities or deadlines or daily to-do lists. I do have some bigger ideas of what I need to do, but they will need a little more work.

But for today, I am up early, at work and taking the first step to changing some bad habits!

A rewarded effort

I thought I'd share with you my workout yesterday. It very nearly did not happen, but I am so glad it did. It re-inforced in me that a small effort can have huge results.

As I was driving home from work, the storm clouds were gathering and the sky was getting darker. Reports on the radio were saying that the rain had started in other areas of Sydney. Bugger! I was supposed to go for a run, and I hate running in the rain (or wind, or heat, or anything not perfect!). Watching The Bold and the Beautiful was looking much more appealing and I wanted to find out if Hope and Liam would get married.

Ok, slightly pathetic, but I bet you have done something like that too!

Feeling guilty, I tried procrastinating, waiting to see if the weather would get worse- a strong coffee would help my run if I did end up going, and the washing needed to be brought in off the line, just in case the rain started. Better to only feel guilty about missing my run than to also feel annoyed about wet washing as well.

Fortunately, the weather did not get worse. I finished my coffee and collected my clothes before I could turn on the TV. So I got dressed rather before I could change my mind, packed up the dog and off we went.

The run was not very eventful, but the following things did happen:

1. I started jogging straight away, rather than walking for 5 minutes (warm up aka putting off running)
2. My dog behaved, running well with me and not being distracted by the other dogs and giving chase. My run was pretty uninterrupted.
3. My breathing got into a good rhythm, and my self talk kept the same pattern. It was quite meditative.
4. I did not feel like I was dying in the last km, in fact I felt like I could have gone further.
5. A few people said hello- this seems to happen more when you both have a dog and are out exercising.
6. It did not rain and conditions were perfect for running.

By the end, I was almost cheering myself. I was happy and on a high. I felt strong, powerful and in control, like I could conquer the world. I believed that if I kept training, I will eventually reach my goals, whether it is 10km or a half marathon.

The choice I made to get out the door and exercise, even when I did not want to was rewarded 100-fold. Such a small effort for such a huge pay-off. It make me wonder why it is so hard sometimes to find the motivation to get out there when the benefits are so rewarding.

And even better, Liam and Hope's marriage problems were the furthest thoughts from my mind as I concentrated on my own, brighter future!

Mind power

A few months ago I made the goal of running the Blackmores Sydney Running Festival half marathon. I registered, paid and started training.

But something was not right. During my runs, my head kept telling me to stop running. My distances were improving, but I was still walking at regular intervals due to my head telling me "you can't do this!", "You? Run a marathon? Yeah, right!" It was driving me crazy, I was so determined logically to reach my goal, but self doubt was creeping in and my body struggled to defy my negative thoughts. It felt impossible.

So I stopped training. I ignored all the event emails and tweets and my souvenir singlet that I ordered still lies unopened. Opening it would mean accepting failure.

Yesterday was the race day, I woke up at 630am realising that I should have been on the start line. I did the only thing I could- I went back to sleep. When I woke again and looked at the clock, I calculated that I would have just finished the race. It was all over.

The only thing left to do was accept that I had failed to reach my goal. It felt HORRIBLE! I felt disappointed with myself and ashamed of my "failure".


The goal was not physically impossible, but I was mentally unprepared for all the self-doubt that crept in. It was purely my thoughts that got in the way of me achieving the goal. I have not given up on my half-marathon goal, but my head just needs some confidence in my ability to do a shorter distance before I attempt the bigger goal.

I am sure my situation is not unique. When we see successful people in sporting, career or business, we do not focus on their journey, we just see their destination. Many of them have had major setbacks and failures along the way. I am sure many have wondered at times if it is all worth it. Success is not necessarily guaranteed first time. I do however believe that perseverance will get you there in the end.

So, I re-evaluated my goal and now aim to run a 10km run in November, a goal that does not feel so big and insurmountable as a half marathon. For the last month, I have resumed my training and this time, I am working on my head as well as my body, and so far it is working well. Simple mantras like "one more step...one more step" help me keep going during my runs. I visualise running my race, with lots of people, drink stations and the approaching finish line. I am already nearly half way to my 10km goal, running 4.5km non-stop, and my goal feels much closer and less scary than my half marathon goal. My head feels like it is keeping up well with my body and I feel much stronger mentally than I did when I was running further but stopping to walk. I am slowly getting there and am quietly celebrating my small achievements.

I don't want to feel like a failure again. I have to believe that I learned a valuable lesson about the power of the mind and that I will be able to be more mentally prepared next time to succeed.

Putting it out there

Today I plan to run on the road for 5km.

Last week I achieved the goal of running 5km, but it was on a treadmill. I am dreading it so I thought I would put it out into the ether so I would have to do it! I live at the top of a hill (not very motivating as the end of the run is always uphill!), so my plan is to run down the hill, along a track, and back and see where the 5km ends. Then I will walk back up the hill!

So there it is- I will report back tonight with my progress.

Wish me luck.

8pm- I did it! It was not easy, my calves were burning and I was trying to keep up a certain pace which I just managed. While it hurt at the time, it was totally satisfying!