Last week my brother and I discovered that the GPS tracker on my Adidas running app was a bit off. On July 2nd, we ran neck n' neck, which surprised us both because my Obie is FAST. He finally caved and downloaded the same running app to track our stats. According to his app, he completed 1 mile at 9 minutes, 10 seconds. And, although we came in at the same time, my app said I needed to run an extra .15 miles to finish the run.
Before that July 2nd run, I started to lose all motivation and confidence in reaching my goal (1 mile in 9 minutes by July 1). I managed to get down to 9:09 on June 16th but the seconds kept climbing back up after that. I made the excuse that work/life was just too distracting, but honestly, I was just afraid of not reaching my goal in time.
And I didn't. I didn't even run on July 1st because I already made up my mind that I would fail.
I "failed" on July 1st but I decided to keep going. I paid close attention to how my mind & body responded to this failure (or rather my fear of failure) and where I needed to shift my mindset and push harder. I told myself, "The goal was great but the journey is greater -- so keep going".
I deleted the app and reinstalled it for my run this morning. My brother left for work early, which meant I'd have to go alone. I almost gave myself another excuse. I almost broke another promise. I almost didn't love myself.
Today I ran my fastest time: 1 mile in 8 minutes and 35 seconds!
The tracker was definitely off (!!!) but instead of being upset about its inaccuracy, I laughed it off and thanked it for the Mr. Miyagi lesson.
Today I was reminded that there will always things outside of my control and some of those things will try to get in my way. But I possess the will to find a way forward and keep going.