Consider this your encouragement to do what is important to you even if it is difficult.
My alarm went off far too soon. I had a restless night. As I opened my eyes to switch off the alarm, I realized it was still dark. A quick look at my phone told me it was 13 degrees. I really didn’t feel like getting up to go lane swimming in the local outdoor pool. It was too everything – too cold, too dark. I was too tired. Luckily for me, I popped a quick message in our family group chat and instantly received a message back from my brother G, “Seize the day, little sister!” I quickly took the encouragement, stopped thinking and stepped into action. Just do it, I told myself.
I did my 1 km swim. I felt really good afterwards – especially considering the challenges I faced in getting myself there.
Consider this your encouragement to seize the day!
I remember another experience where encouragement helped me to do something I really wanted to do.
We planned (I say we loosely. It was my husband who planned) a trip to France after I saw an incredible photo of an old stone house in a lavender field in Provence. The lavender was so blue. It looked so peaceful. The gorgeous stone house looked idyllic in the middle of the lavender rows. I wanted to go there and see it in person. My husband said, “let’s go” and so we went.
We saw a lot of incredible lavender fields as we drove around the area. By early evening of the day before we were leaving the region, we still hadn’t seen the stone house field. I had an idea where it was – about a three hour round trip from where we were. Honestly, we’d already done a lot of driving on that day. I was tired. I was coming up with every reason that it wouldn’t work to find the stone house field. I was persuading myself that it was okay because we had already seen a lot of lavender fields. I had forgotten that this was the reason we had planned the trip in the first place! With my husband’s encouragement, we decided to try and find it. It was a long drive. We were racing the sunset. When we got to the area at dusk, we knew we were close. We searched, but we ran out of light. We didn’t find the stone house. I was quite disappointed. The next morning Chris again encouraged me, and we decided to try one last time. Another 3-hour drive. This time, we found the field!
After all that, the stone house field was not quite what I had imagined. It was the middle of the day when we got there and very hot – 36 degrees. The house was quite a walk into the lavender fields. I started walking. The sun was so hot. The lavender was full of bees. I walked and walked. I got stung by a bee. I kept walking. Finally, I got to within sight of the stone house (which was hidden in a little dip). I saw it! I was surrounded by lavender and bees for as far as my eyes could see. It wasn’t quite what I had imagined – I felt dizzy from the heat, my stung leg was hurting. I couldn’t get a good photograph. Despite all that, it was remarkable to be in a sea of lavender and hear nothing but the bees. I’m so glad I did it! I know I wouldn’t have seen that stone house if Chris hadn’t kept encouraging me.
Consider this your encouragement not to give up on what matters to you!
Coaching
Maybe you don’t have people in your life that encourage you to discover what matters to you and go after it. A coach can be that person for you. Connect with me to learn more about coaching.
I’ll be running another mental fitness course starting at the beginning of September. Mental fitness is in part about learning to catch your mind when it is sabotaging you instead of serving you (like when I was persuading myself to stay in bed instead of going swimming or give up on trying to find the stone house field). Another part of mental fitness is about learning to activate instead of staying stuck in your head. Connect with me for more details. Here is what some of the people who have done the course with me have said about it.
Beyond the Shadow 