Scared

I am scared. It's a few days before one of the biggest physical challenges of my life: My half marathon. And lucky for me, I've got my own little demented cheerleader! Yay! Cruella is out in full force to throw me off my game, knock me down, fill me with heavy, defeating doubts. She's got me terrified.

I've heard "use fear as fuel for your journey". Well, unfortunately for me, my fear transforms into a megaphone for Cruella. She knows exactly what to say to make my fear seem insurmountable. Some of the inner dialogue happening right now revolving around my half marathon goes a little something like this: "What if you don't finish? Won't you be really ashamed of yourself then! Talked a big game and couldn't deliver. How are you going to tell everybody out there that you tried and FAILED?! How inspiring is that? Maybe the biggest goal you've set for yourself in a very long time, and there's a very good chance you could crash and burn."

That stream of evil consciousness is echoing vehemently from the darkest depths. So, it got me thinking. Why is Cruella yelling so loudly about this? Why would my failure this time be more important than any other day? Well, I'll tell you what: This race means a lot to me. I've spent a lot of my life attaching my self worth to things/events/my weight/people. And this half marathon is one of those. Luckily, this attachment is much healthier for me than ones I've had in the past. The reason I've done this for so long is because of my lack of self-worth. If I could just get the good grades, or that popular boy, or win that award, maybe then I would believe I was worth something. Clearly someone who achieves something like that is worthy. So, I've lived my life in a yo-yo. Achieving for the wrong reasons. I never actually believed I would reach any of my goals, and I'm always pleasantly surprised when I do. After accumulating such a list is achievements, you would think I'd start to see my self-worth through my various accomplishments. Sounds about right. Except I have Cruella, who is loud enough to drown out the success. Her tunnel vision on my failures becomes my tunnel vision. I can't accept the things I HAVE done because of the laundry list of things I HAVEN'T done.

I've begun the battle to silence Cruella, but it's going to take awhile. So, in the meantime, I'm teaching myself to fail. Not all the time, mind you. But sometimes you have to fail so you learn a better way to succeed. Also, as most people know, the struggle is what really brings value to the success. And what's more of a struggle than overcoming failure? A resonating quote for me is "Failure isn't the end, quitting is."

Thankfully, I have people who believe in me regardless of how many times I fall down. And instead of running away scared, I'm going to give it my all. And if that leads to a failure, if I don't finish the half marathon, it won't take away all the good things I have done in training. It won't take away the love of the people who believe in me, the things I've already proven to myself, or the lessons learned on this journey. Nor will it be the end. I may fail, but I will never quit. I have big plans for the futures and I can continue to improve.

And regardless of how well I do or do not do, I'm going to be proud of myself, proud of what I accomplished, and proud that I challenged myself and pushed myself to be better.