Getting out of my own way!

I’m at home at my parents house in Connecticut for a wedding and a quick visit with the fam.  While I’m here, I’ve had to keep up with my Ironman70.3 training, which has been a challenge at the best of times. 

On Monday night after having training hang over my head ALL day long, I finally went to my old high school pool to do my training swim. It was after 8pm when I finally got my butt to the pool. I dragged my feet all day long and only went because the pool was closing soon. This has been the theme of my training lately. I wake up, look at what I have to do that day on my training plan, swim, bike or run and then I avoid it.  I avoid it all day long and get straight to work instead, knowing full well that I prefer to workout first thing in the morning.  

For some reason I just haven’t been able to break the habit of avoidance, find my flow and get excited about training. It’s the first time in a really long time that I am following a training plan and not just doing whatever fitness I feel like on the day. I think I have been majorly resisting the structured plan and feeling like someone is telling me what to do…because they are. 

Honestly, the only thing that was making me train at all, was having to be accountable to my coach. Because of her and only because of her, I have only missed 1 training session in the past 4 weeks.  I couldn’t bear the thought of having a big red box on my online training plan where I missed a session or feeling like I would disappoint her.  At the end of the day that’s weird because me not training, is only going to hurt me, not her!

On Monday night though, everything changed! Up on the wall at the pool, the swim team has posted all kinds of motivational quotes. The one that was staring me in the face (like literally- it was at the end of my lane on the wall) said this: 

It got me thinking… I had plenty of time to think staring at the bottom of the pool. I get what face your wall means in the sense of when you are doing physcial activity like swimming or running a marathon and you hit a wall and you have to push through to the other side. I felt my marathon wall BIG TIME. But this idea of FACING YOUR WALL, was screaming at me that I was my wall.

I had one of those light bulb moments of, “Oh my god. I am my wall.”  

I am what is standing in my way and holding me back. The only thing stopping me from training first thing in the morning, from enjoying my training and the process is ME! The sign was shouting to me: “Get out of your own way girl! Stop holding yourself back, stop standing in the way of your flow of ease, and stop making things harder for yourself then they need to be!” I think I had let fear take ahold of me, I let self doubt get the best of me, I had a voice in the back of my head holding me back, because it didn’t really believe that I could do a half Ironman in the first place.    

So the next morning, I faced my wall, my resistance and I got my butt to the first spin class of the day. And I cried. Early on in the class my eyes filled up and I had this huge wave of relief and release wash over me. I was like, I’m doing it. Wow, I’m doing it. I’m working out first thing in the morning. I got up and I just did it. I didn’t think about it or give myself time to fight with myself. I felt like I had broken through to the other side of my wall and given myself permission to succeed and stop holding myself back. 

I will NO LONGER be my own wall. 

And so far, I haven’t. Yesterday, I did my run at 7am and today I was at the pool at 6:15am. So far so good and I know it’s only been a couple of days, but I feel so much better for it that I definitely plan to continue this way because it feels so good. 

My question for you is: How can you face your wall? 

Do you need to face your wall in your career? Relationships? With your health?  Are you not allowing yourself to face your wall or break through it because it’s scary? Because you don’t feel worthy or that you don’t deserve what’s on the other side? What if you allowed yourself to imagine what it would look like to get out of your own way? 

Like I said, being stuck sucks and it’s hard to do it on your own. I know for me to stick to anything, I have to have someone to hold me accountable. There is no way in hell I could train for the Ironman70.3 on my own. I just wouldn’t do it.

With any big thing I have done in life, I’ve always gathered the support around myself that’s going to help ensure my success and not allow me to give in and give up when I start to feel my wall. 

This is what I do for my clients in my Eat Well + Live Well program. I am their someone to be accountable to.

They make huge changes to their health and their eating habits because they have support and accountability. Have you tried to do a diet on your own? I have- it sucks and I last about a week. But, during my 8 week program, my clients succeed:

 1) because it’s not a diet and

2) because they have to be accountable to me, to themselves and to the others in the group and

3) having that support from others going though the same program at the same time is an invaluable support system, because together we are stronger.  

Are you be ready to face your wall? Reserve your space now.  

Message me if you have questions.