Y’all! It’s beyond time for us to quit listening to the stories that tell us there is anything that we can’t do. You said you couldn’t? It’s time to tell us who you are.
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When was the last time someone tried to give you the message that you couldn’t do something that you hoped you could?
I don’t mean that the rules wouldn’t allow it.
I mean, when was the last time that someone said you just weren’t up to the challenge?
Do you remember how it felt? Maybe it took your breath away for just a second. Maybe you are a friend who shows her emotions in her cheeks and they turned as red as a tomato. Did you feel like you might get sick?
Here is the important question: then what?
What did you do next?
Did you fight it? Tell that person to shove it? Did you get sassy from the mouth while meanwhile your shoulders naturally rolled inward as your body tried to close off your heart for protection?
Did you get a plan?
For my new athlete friends, did these words become stories that you have internalized and dragged around with you for years or even decades?
Loves, it’s time to let them go.
Our sport is hard enough as it is without the extra weight.
Sometimes the hits keep coming
Of course, sometimes it might feel like you are just bailing out a canoe with a hole, right? You drop the hurt from one comment and BAM! Here comes another.
A few weeks ago I was talking to another podcaster about all the things that we are doing and what is coming up next for us. I shared with her that I’m studying to become a running coach.
You know what she said to me in the middle of a lovely conversation in front of God and everything? She said, “Well wait. Why would anyone want you to coach them if you aren’t any good?”
Maybe you hear the record scratch sound, like in real life in your home and didn’t know what it was.
If you aren’t any good.
LORDY!
I just paused for a second to take it in. How am I feeling? How did those words land? What had I said that made her feel like that was on the same planet as appropriate?
Grace, sally. Grace and peace. Don’t get nasty because that stung.
Because I never said I wasn’t any good. I’ve been doing some real hard self-work to remove all that value stuff from the way that I see my performance. All I said was that I’m not naturally talented and I’m not breaking any speed records.
To be honest, I’m really stinking proud of myself for running for more than 5 hours to complete a marathon. Do you know how hard that is on the body? And I’ve done it. Multiple times.
In my opinion, I think that makes me very good!
So I just shared with her that women would choose to work with me because I am a safe place, without judgement, who has been where they are. I said that the science to make a better runner is the science. It’s about improving and thriving, not about the olympics.
Then I moved the conversation along.
I can be hard to let go
Every so often, I hear it again like it just hit my headphones.
“If you aren’t any good…”
And so it got me thinking, why is it that even though I’m a fully formed adult, it felt like I was 10 and waiting for someone to pick the chubby gal without any coordination for kickball teams, praying I wouldn’t be picked last.
And then getting picked last.
Or the first time I tried out to be an ocean rescue lifeguard, THE job of the summer for kids growing up on Daytona Beach.
And in front of all of my friends, failing the swim test miserably.
(I subsequently trained all year to be able to make the swim cutoff the next year and then I worked there for seven years!)
Do you hold the stories of what you “Couldn’t do?”
Do you have those memories seared into your brain? Can you feel the rejection or failure from a lifetime of trying to move your body and just not quite getting the pieces to fall into place?
Because I do. And I’m betting that if this podcast has resonated with you, you do too.
But guess what is so amazing about being the powerful, smart, capable, adaptable woman that we are:
Our future isn’t our past.
Our current state isn’t our past.
You right now aren’t the same person you were ten minutes ago. If you ten minutes ago you were sitting on your couch scarfing potato chips and looking askance at the perky broad on your tv, you can decide that you aren’t that person right now and you won’t be that person tomorrow or a week from now or ever again if you want.
It doesn’t matter one tiny bit what someone told you you couldn’t do. It doesn’t even matter what YOU told YOU you couldn’t do.
In fact, let’s change it right now. I believe that YOU can do anything.
Run a 5k? I believe you can. Clean up your life? I believe you can. Run 100 miles? I absolutely believe you can.
Yup. It might take crazy hard work and years. But with focus and power and an open, loving heart that is ready to forgive yourself and others for the nasty words used against you, I believe you absolutely can.
So starting right now, what do you believe about yourself?
If you haven’t yet, pop on over to our new closed facebook community We Are Finding Finish Lines and let us know in the thread I’ll start what you are believing about yourself.
You tell us who you are and that is how we will know you. It’s a fresh start. What a gift.
I’ll be back with you on monday, dear athletes. Don’t forget to subscribe so you’ll know when the episode hits your favorite podcast player!
Until next time, carry on women of valor.
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[…] last week, Episode 35: Who Said You Couldn’t? was a Five Minute Friday about the stories that we have told ourselves or have adopted after […]