Changing Your Mindset

One of the things that I like to do is trail running.  I run with a running group and this Sunday was a huge challenge for me.  I've been off from running for a few months and just started getting back into running Mid December, with a consistent effort in January.  This week our long Sunday run consisted of hill repeats for 3 hours.

Amazing day we had!

By my second descent my coach asked me how I was doing, and I said to her, flat out 'I can't do 3 hours of this'.  She said that's fine, just do your best, and if you feel you've done enough then just do the out and back to Clifton Rd and get your three hours in.  I thought oh what a relief, and continued my descent.

Long steep climb!

On the descent an interesting mind shift happened.  I was no longer thinking about 'three hours of brutal torture', but rather that my new plan was just taking it one repeat at a time, and checking in with myself at the start of each repeat, and asking myself can you do another one, or do do you need to take the out and back.  I'm happy to report that I made 6 repeats in total, and completed all 3 hours!!

All this happened simply because I shifted my mindset, and started to break down the big challenge into a series of smaller ones.

Changing my mindset to overcome challenges etc is something I am familiar with, but sometimes, it's easy to get caught up in the pain or the stress that the here and now is presenting.  Sometimes we need a little bit of a reminder that if you change your outlook, you change your circumstances.  This is a very powerful tool that can be used to dispel feelings of inadequacy, fear, discomfort etc and replace them with happiness, courage, acceptance and perseverance.

Changing our point of reference. Also allows us to become more compassionate people towards one another, ourselves and our circumstances.  Try to remember that and use this tool the next time you have an opportunity to change you way of thinking to the better!