Using your perspective and personal history as a tool!

I went for a run this past Saturday and it was ROUGH.  I felt like my body was made of cement and I was riddled with arthritis.  This is not an uncommon feeling for me.  My body loves to pretend it’s unfamiliar with this running motion and often combats me for a solid twenty minutes.  Then like clockwork it relaxes into the run and we are back on track.  Sometimes I forget that this happens to me (despite this happening for YEARS) and I give up before the twenty minutes are over.  But when I persevere through it and get past the 20 minute mark, I inevitably forget I am running (I’m serious!) and start to enjoy the run.

When that happened this weekend and I struggled through the twenty minutes, I thought about how grateful I was to be an adult and no longer a teenager.  Teenagers are all angst and hormones and can’t think past the present moment or even imagine they won’t feel what they are feeling for the REST OF THEIR LIVES!!!!  But adults have perspective and history.  And man, that’s a beautiful thing.

Perspective reminds you that if you had an awful day at work, it doesn’t mean you will ALWAYS have an awful day at work.  Or if you handled an interaction badly, you will ALWAYS handle ALL interactions badly. With that being said, it doesn’t mean that in your bummer moment, you are above feeling like a total failure or that your life sucks, or that you picked the wrong career and you should probably just run away and start a new life (I can get very dramatic in my bummed out moments).  We still have those moments, or at least I do….because there’s still a little teenager inside all of us.  But unlike actual teenagers, you have the advantage of having history and the knowledge that you can also change things in your life that you don’t want.  And how awesome is that??

So when you are hit with some tough moments, I encourage you to move past your initial teenage angst (feel free to have a total meltdown first) and tap into your history and get some perspective.  Quiet your teenage mind, and leave some room for your adult self that knows whatever you are grappling with may be a thing of the past in a week.  Keep running.

Take care of YOU.