Don’t be your own obstacle.

Let’s talk.

I’ve been trying my hardest to keep up with blogs, especially my favorite ones, and let me tell you, joining the FitFluential family does not make it easy. I mean, the number of blogs starting to fill my reader is growing, because these people are motivating, inspiring, and full of energy and information. Something I’m totally aspiring to be.

I’ll touch on one in particular: Jess’ blog EatDrinkBreatheSweat. Don’t worry, there will be links. The other day, she wrote a post that seriously said everything I’ve been feeling perfectly.

It all started when I wrote about how we should all choose to achieve our goals. That everything is left up to us…we’re in control of our own lives, and if we have the ability, we should all choose to achieve our goals. I finally chose to let go of everything that had been stressing me out, and trust me, there was a lot. I reached way down deep inside and pulled my real self out from the depths of unhealthy habits, bottled up feelings, holiday sadness, and nonexistent motivation and spoke up in that post. I was sharing it with you all, but most of all, I was talking to myself.

Two days later, I wrote about the privileges I had been handed, and announced that I’d been accepted as a FitFluential Ambassador. I still feel privileged and even more motivated than ever. Especially when I started seeing quite a bit more interaction and a number of new readers. This spurred my post on the most important lesson of 2011.

I haven’t felt more excited for my future as I do now. I thought about my goals. And I’ll fully admit: while I love the sound of planning and calculating and diagramming…I find it difficult. While so many of you are trying to quiet your type A tendencies, I’m trying to embrace mine. Many of you know I try to do too much at once, and while I make lovely to-do lists, I’ve been unrealistic about timelines in the past. Because of this, I’ve been trying to figure out how I’m going to approach 2012, and I’ll tell you how:

Exactly like Jess. I’d love to give you the link to this post using the actual title of the post, but the words that struck me most were “to leap before looking“. Perfectly. Said. It’s exactly how I want to approach my year. I’ve been afraid in the past. (Could this explain why I just never went for the half?)

Source.

Needless to say, my run last night felt exactly how Jess explained the new year: the year with no limits. In the past, after my “breaks” from running, I’d start out slow and easy. Being careful about how hard I pushed myself. I’d run a mile and let it increase from there. Last night, I threw on my kicks and ran…freezing cold (a never for me before) and all. I leaped before looking. I got 3.13 miles in on my first run back from a break, and Jess’ post on “reality checking miles” spoke to me in a different way than what Jess’ run was to her.  She came down to Earth in that run, realizing that there need to be days that remind us that running is really hard work; that not all of them are perfect and end in runner’s high.

Yet, for the first time ever, my run made me realize that not all runs have to be full of fear. Not all runs need to require judgment of our abilities. Why did I always feel like I needed to punish myself for taking a break by setting myself back. Last night’s run proved to me that leaping before looking is the perfect way to approach your goals. There will always be supportive hands available when you need them.

Just go for it. Do it. No excuses. No fear. And stop being your own obstacle.