OH MY GOODNESS! SUCH DRAMA FOR A WEDNESDAY MORNING.
Is that a clickbaity headline? Well, YES, probably.
Is it true?
Sorta.
Like most clickbaity headlines, there’s more to the story than just running. My BIG TRANSFORMATION as evident in the featured photo is the result of a combination of things.
Here’s the umbrella they all fall under:
PUTTING MYSELF FIRST
“Oh, but don’t my clients need to be first? Or my kids? How will they survive if I don’t cut the tops off of their strawberries before I go out of town on business for five days? (someone actually said that to me one time) Or my husband? Or my mother? Or my wife?”
Nope.
YOU GOTTA PUT YOURSELF FIRST.
I am only the 1,567,892 person to say that online or out loud. Maybe it will catch a few of you because maybe looking at that picture will drive it home.
That girl on the left? She was heading for DISASTER. Then she wouldn’t have been able to help any of her clients OR her family.
I could have submitted this to Runner’s World. On Tuesdays they have blog posts of real people and what running helped them do. I wanted it on my own blog, though, so you can see that I’m a real person who has been through allllllllllll of this stuff and how it relates to work.
Here’s what running helped me do:
RUNNING MADE ME HAVE A SCHEDULE.
Three days a week and on Saturday mornings, I stop everything I’m doing and I go to practice at 6:30. There, I get social interaction with like-minded individuals. They’re all high functioning business people, teachers, lawyers, realtors, doctors, non profit managers. I also have a place to BE where I will EXERCISE which is GOOD for me. (I also like running. A lot. Fully obsessed. My sister says it is because I am an INTENSE PERSON.)
Runner’s high? Yeah, it’s really a thing.
I’ve had shin splints for three weeks and I’ve been SO DANG GROUCHY because of it. I have missed my friends and I miss the endorphins but what it has really done:
MISSING RUNNING PRACTICE MESSED UP MY SCHEDULE.
Makes it harder to have a hard stop at night. Especially because I know it is temporary, missing practice. It’s so easy to say, “Oh I’ll just work at night for these few weeks.”
Working all night makes me not want to get up in the morning.
I have a book due on Monday. I am LOSING MY MIND trying to finish it because that is how book projects pretty much always go.
I’m still going to running practice, though. Now that I can run a couple of miles.
I have to get back on my schedule and the only person who can make me do that is me.
