Will Brake For Doubts

The past few months have been full of activity and have resulted in a plethora of learning experiences for me. It's an exciting time in my life and I'm so grateful for all of the support I've had from my amazing friends. As I go about making some major changes in my life, I've noticed a pattern and, as I am wont to do, I have spent some time pondering this pattern. I realized that the majority of the times I have made changes, in the direction I really want my life to go, that I was actually met with relatively little resistance. More often than not, one change would open doors that I didn't even know were there and it led to a pretty amazing snowball effect. It's the best kind of slippery slope to be on, let me tell you! What I noticed, though, was that as things gained momentum, in the very direction I truly wanted to go, I would start to slow things down. I would press on the brakes and look around wondering how to pause or whether I should turn back. How strange! As I kept pushing myself forward and tried best to stay out of my own way, I really wondered what was going on in my crazy little head.

Last week, I scheduled a personal training session with my amazing coach, Jess. We went over my fitness and health goals for the year and started laying out a plan to get there. One of the goals I set was to be able to finish a 400m sprint in less than 1:30. As luck would have it, the fabulous Ben Palmer, one of the CrossFit Endurance coaches, happened to be at the gym and available to chat. He watched a warmup run to give me his critique on form and to be able to give me a few drills to do on my own to improve. He said something that has been stuck in my head since. When you get your legs pulling correctly and you start to run, you have to lean into the run to pick up speed. I had spent a fair amount of time repeating drills to move my legs and arms properly and I was starting to add up more and more miles completed each week. After all that, I was still leaning backwards when I would get going. If I wanted to pick up speed and move forward, I had to lean forward not backward.

How simple is that?

As I went about my day, I started to see myself delaying meetings that would propel me forward in my career goals. I noticed myself putting off decisions that would move my closer to my financial goals. And I was avoiding contacting even my close friends for fear I might have to let them in on everything I'd spent time dreaming up! Then it hit me. Another frying pan moment. I had the right shoes, the right form, my legs were moving, my arms were moving, all I had to do was lean into it. All the work I had done to prepare myself was useless if I didn't lean forward and get going.

So here's my challenge to myself and the only way I will reach my 1:30 run time and all the other goals I've set:

Lean into life.

Now that I've updated my old bumper sticker,

"Will Brake For Doubts Real Problems Only"

I'm ready to hit the road and conquer all these dreams!

"There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Cheers to a year of forward motion.
-PaleoJo