What has running taught me about life in 2018?  It’s been a year full of surmountable financial, family and health obstacles.  At times it just seemed like there was no light at the end of the tunnel.  However, many of the lessons I learned through running this year were game changers in how I approached hardships and roadblocks in my life.  In the past when I felt myself losing control of situations I would be immersed by the scenario and allow it to control how I responded to everything.  This year….that changed in my running and ultimately also changed me as a person. 

Be Intentional

The first lesson that I learned and actively applied was being intentional about my thoughts.  With running I realized that my negative thoughts held me back and the same in life.  I’d get to a point and give up, or think I wasn’t worthy, or that I simply couldn’t do it.  Instead of thinking how impossible tasks were I began to think about how I would get through them.  I started applying the same mindset in my life and it altered my perception of what was possible.

Develop Accountability

The second lesson I cultivated was accountability.  Having no one to answer to makes it easy to make deals with yourself.  Deals you have no intention of keeping.  I found a running partner this year and we both had two entirely different goals.  We still kept in touch daily and encouraged each other, while also telling each other our daily and weekly goals, not to mention our struggles.  I found social media to be a great outlet as well.  No one may have cared about my posts (perhaps some even got tired of seeing them ), but on some level in my mind I had to stick to my runs, my FBL video’s and I had to keep to my journey documented.  It’s always been easy for me to let myself down, but not other people.  Made up in my mind or not.

No Excuses

The third was letting go of excuses and sticking to my plan.  It is SO EASY to make excuses, because we live within the societal norm of being “so busy”.  Talk to a person that doesn’t complain about being busy.  Everyone is busy.  What comes into play here is vigilance and commitment to your plan to diet, exercise, read more, dance more, sing more or climb a mountain.  Very simply, it will not happen if you don’t commit.  If you want this and you are willing to put in the work then you are willing to MAKE time.  You’ll stick to your goals when you’re sick, sore, tired, hungry or mad.  In 2018 life threw me more curve-balls than it has in may years. The fact that I refused to give up on my running gave me the strength to power through all the tough times I faced.  A few years ago a difficult incident could seem impossible to deal with and now I know I will deal with it.  The obstacle is simple finding a solution to handle it.

Relinquish Power

The most important thing I developed from my running was something I learned in Celebrate Recovery years and years ago.   It was relinquishing power.  It turns out some things are out of your control in running.  The weather, injuries and even health.  Life is the same way.  Events, tragedies and responsibilities can interject at any time.  You can’t control that, but you can control how you respond to it.  You can be flexible enough to accept some things are out of your hands.  You’ll just have to remain open minded and adjust your plans to reach your goal.

This year has been life changing and I owe part of that to running.  I don’t have all the answers and I’m still a huge work in progress, but I’m taking steps and fully committing myself.  I’m hoping on my continued journey that I can gain even a tenth of what I have this year.  Mostly, I refuse to give up my pursuit and let go of the progress I’ve made.  I hope you all start a journey this year and don’t give up either.  If you need an accountability partner I’d be more than happy to support you.  Join me at “Accountability with Header” in a closed group to stay on track of whatever life goal it is you are working towards.