tell yourself YOU CAN!

I have another guest post for you guys!  And it so perfectly fits my morning.

I woke up defeated, my heel in pain and my confidence shot.  I was going to jog this 5k and not give it a second thought.  Hey, at least I got a shirt.

On the starting line, I made a vow to at least try to race and see how I felt.

I got second place overall/first place in my age group!  22:54 (7:43/mile)

I rocked it!

And you can too!

Just follow Pam’s advice – tell yourself YOU CAN!  The rest will follow.

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When I saw Lindsay’s plea for help to have some bloggers do guest posts for her blog, I volunteered without even thinking.  Then I sat back, and it hit me.  What did I just do??  Two thoughts entered my head. The first was while I love to write and have been writing on and off for years I am a new blogger, why would someone with such an established blog want an inexperienced writer?  And the second what the heck I am going to write about? Well, obviously Lindsay thought I was a capable enough writer, because she chose me as one of her guest bloggers, and I couldn’t be more excited.  I hope I make her proud. <-Pam, you rocked this post!!!

I had been pondering over what to write that was worthy enough for her blog, when I was asked by my Lieutenant to run the obstacle course at work.  They are having some of the officers and civilians run the course so that can get an average of run times to use as the requirement for our new officer applicants.  Again, I immediately said yes, I’ll do it, and then instantly thought what did I just get myself into?  I have not been working on strength training, I’ve never done an obstacle course and I didn’t even think to ask what this course entailed.

Hmmm…..I see a common denominator with both these situations.  One, I volunteer way too quickly, and two, once I do volunteer, I have no confidence in myself to do it.  And the really sad thing is it seems that I am not the only one.

I belong to an awesome women’s running group on Facebook, with some of the greatest, strongest women I have ever met, but I bet at least 90% of them lack confidence. They don’t think they’re pretty enough, smart enough, run fast or long enough, and they don’t think they are a good enough mother.  We all encourage and support each other, and tell each other that what they are feeling definitely is not the truth – and it isn’t, but yet we still feel the same things about ourselves.  If we could just listen to our own advice, we could be confident.

So, how am I going to change this?  Well I provide as much encouragement as possible to my friends, but I cannot change them or how they feel about themselves.  But I can work on myself.  So I took my nervous self to the obstacle course today, and watched as another great woman (officer) went through it and did awesome, 4 minutes 33 seconds! The fastest male officer was 2 minutes 58 seconds, and the slowest male officer was 4 minutes 30 seconds. I was so proud of her, and thought if I could just do close to her time it would be great, but I’d be happy if I just finished it in 5 minutes.

I was getting more nervous by the minute, as I walked up to the patrol car where I would start my turn at the course. Ready, set, go….I was off.  Remove the seatbelt, take out the shotgun, place it on the table, pull the 80 pound dummy about 20 feet, and then run up hill to the first obstacle.  Up a four foot fall, crawl under the next wall, up the second four foot wall, crawl under the next….wow, repetitive.  Then run through the cones, go under the low crawl, and climb the higher wall.  Yes, I was doing it, now to head back.  Here I go again….under the low crawl, run through the cones, under the wall, up the wall, under the wall, and up the wall.  Yay, the hard part is done.  Now to run my heart out (luckily downhill) and pretend to shoot the shotgun.

I did it….the amazing part – I did it in 4 minutes 14 seconds.  Way faster than the 5 minute time I thought I was going to run. I rocked that obstacle course, and I’m ready to do it again with hopes to maybe even get a faster time.

So, what’s my problem then?  Obviously, I can do what I set my mind out to do.  I started running less than 5 years ago, and I have run multiple 5k races and 3 half marathons, am about to begin training for a marathon and I write a blog on the internet.  Why don’t I feel like I’m awesome?  Because, I know if another woman told me she had done all these things, I would think she was absolutely amazing.

In the words of Pink, “You’re so mean when you talk about yourself, you were wrong change the voices in your head make them like you instead.”

So, ladies, starting right now I am going to change me!   I am going to tell myself every day that I am awesome, and I can and will do everything I set my mind on. How about you?  I challenge you to join me with this, because each and every one of you is truly amazing – so tell yourself.

Go ahead, stand in the mirror and say, “I am amazing, and I can and do everything I set my mind to.”

There, don’t you feel better – I know I do.

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Pam is happily married with 2 great boys, Ryan (13) and Hunter (9) and works as the administrative assistant to the police chief.  Running used to be something she did to lose weight, now it’s a part of her life.  She aims to instill this healthy attitude into her boys.  She blogs at www.pamdemonium2.blogspot.com.