I thought it was. But I think I was wrong.

This is such a recurring theme in my life. I believe that we do keep experiencing the same situations in life over and over again until we actually learn from them.

My current focus is my running. The half marathon in 7 sleeps. The biggest hardest thing I’ve ever done. But I’m actually feeling it’s really not going to be that hard. The hard part was the training for nearly a year. The hard part was the practice. A tired body, sore muscles, being out of breath while I’m out there and constantly fighting against old thinking that I can’t do it. Reverting to the old habit of telling myself I can’t. But the more I push through my ‘can’ts’, the more I am actually going to be able to live a freer life, a more confident life with better self esteem, be able to say yes to new exciting opportunities and to feel lighter in life. To feel more ease instead of fear or worry about whether I should give something a go. So I guess that means the hardest bit was my mind. My imagination making up how impossible it would be. And I’ve now run 19km at once and I was ok. The second time I was even quite good afterwards. So obviously I CAN do it, why would my mind keep telling me I can’t? It’s running (pardon the pun) out of excuses very quickly. Maybe practice is what gets us through. From believing we cant do something to believing we can. Instead of just feeling like useless stupid rubbish at the beginning because we are new, what if we were a little kind to ourselves and appreciated how far we have come after 6 months of practice?

After 9 nights in Singapore, did I love it? You bet. One of the best holidays I’ve ever had. But in 9 days we walked 166km. I think you could classify that as hard but I actually loved it. It gave me the opportunity to see more of the country, to experience new places, to go to bed each night tired and therefore ready to sleep better. So in this case hard equalled happy!!!!!

Are the difficult conversations with people hard? Is asking for what you want hard? Are setting boundaries hard? Yes, yes and yes. But when I actually do them, life becomes better. (More on this to come because I’m going to see a psychologist to start improving my skills in this area and I’m so excited about it).

I think a lot of people think that the scariest thing I’ve done was jumping out of a plane. But looking back it now seems easy. I’m still proud of myself but I didn’t have to do anything – the tandem guy did all the thinking and hard work. I just had to turn up. And maybe the hard part is the decision, the turning up, training your mind that you are ok and that you are capable of doing this.

Maybe body hard is easy for some whereas mind is harder for others. Is that just because we’ve had more practice in that area? Is it because we had role models in those areas? Or do some of us struggle in both? Can getting better at one help the other?

Have we been taught not to attempt things that are too hard?

I think hard is the during activity. The end result is the motivation or reason that gets you through. That feeling of intense pride, satisfaction, joy, achievement and even shock that you’ve done something you didn’t think you could. Punching your fists in the air, high fiving someone, wrapping your arms around yourself and doing a Leyton Hewitt ‘cmon’. Is that what life is about? Is this our purpose? To keep growing? To feel intensely great?

Can we train our minds to see the good? To see the outcome? To look forward to the good feelings? Yesterday I was listening to a summary podcast from Lewis Howes with a few of his guests talking about high performance habits. Brendan Burchard talked about some of his habits. The one that stood out the most was him saying he’s trained himself that every time he walks through a doorway (and when he wakes up in the morning) he says to himself ‘Bring the joy’. Is that not the most beautiful thing? And isn’t that easy? Just takes remembering and practice and it feels so glorious that I don’t even see hard in that? What if I could get this sort of feeling out of everything I try – more of a curiosity and no pressure on myself, rather than just assuming it’s too hard? If it’s easy is it still worth it? Or are both hard things and easy things important in life? Or are they possibly the same? Maybe it’s just how you choose to see them. So much to ponder in life.

The little things really can change everything, can’t they? And is it a case of changing what your mind tells you? To deliberately talk to yourself with love and support instead of listening to yourself and the old messages that don’t make you feel good?

What would it be like to stop thinking you can’t and started taking tiny steps towards who you really wanted to be, and how you would love to feel?

Be kind to yourself.

Wxx