Self Doubt
The past week has been a little tough. I’ve not been able to run due to some knee pain, and a side effect of that is self doubt. It’s been creeping in to almost every corner of my world, but especially to my marathon hopes.
My self doubt is a lovely little gift that got left behind from my depression, and it is probably my single biggest personal battle, even now. The inner voice that says I can’t is one tricky little fella.
When I was a child I truly believed I could do anything, slide down the banisters, climb trees, be an astronaut, seriously anything; and for the most part I could. Life then comes along and conditions us to think that risk is bad, fun is childish, and dreams are well just that impossible, intangible.
This may be alien to you or you may get a similar inner turmoil; that you can’t, you don’t deserve, you aren’t good enough, and never will be. It can be draining and it has for sure taken its toll on me.
The flip side to the inner voice of self doubt is the outer influence of toxic people. I have had people tell me everything from; I don’t deserve my success in my career to making fun of my insta, blog and running antics. I’m sure these people do not mean any harm by what they say, but they don’t realise how hurtful their words can be to those of us struggling.
This week all of this negativity has culminated in me feeling pretty down about my chances of making it through the 26.2, i haven’t felt like writing, or posting and I haven’t felt myself. The worst part of it all though is I haven’t been able to do the one thing that normally clears my head and gets me back on track, run!
Today I took back control the only way I know how; I went for a run and now I’m writing it down. I ran for 5.5 miles, it wasn’t fast or perfect but there was no pain which gave me an instant boost. As the sun shone above me I felt like I was being showered in hope.
On my run I was given the freedom to start to pull apart the pieces of my brain that have been tripping me up. I was able to distance myself from thinking that my thoughts or others thoughts are absolute and this is what I came up with:
Self Doubt means that I’m doing something out of my comfort zone,
doing something out of that zone means I’m pushing myself to be/do better,
being/doing better may not be popular,
popular is never the end goal,
this is bigger than me,
I am bigger than this.
It’s not overly profound but it helped me realise that I’m pushing myself in lots of new directions, and that can be scary. There will be people along the way who want to put me back in a box that is easily defined. If I can distance myself from that, and focus on my journey; where I have been and where I am going, then maybe I can step out of myself and do something bigger than me.
I’m still not sure if I will make it to the finish line, but I do know this… In 5 weeks time I’ll be at the start line, putting one foot in front of the other, knowing that each step I take is a step closer to making my dreams come true.
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c-x
ThinkingClarely 