Now anyone who knows me knows that cold weather, cold water, etc. is not exactly my favorite habitat, so when I got to the pool and the guards were like yeah it's freezing today and the few people in the pool said the same thing I stood on the side dreading my entry.
I stood on the side, dreading more, I sat down, put my swim cap on, all the while thinking "oh gosh oh gosh oh gosh, it's gonna be freezing! I'm gonna hate it!" I dipped a toe in, yup, ice cold...all the while I just kept thinking how cold and miserable it was going to be. The more I thought it, the more goosebumps started covering my body and I sat on the side having a familiar internal debate. "C'mon Spears, get your act together, you can do it! You're thinking yourself out of it by all that negative self talk. Just dive in, start your laps and after a minute or so, it will feel awesome."
After several, several, several minutes, I took a deep breath, goggles and swim cap on, and dove in. AHH! The shock of the cold water took my breath away for a few seconds, but after swimming not even a whole lap the water already felt good.
Half a mile later, I hopped out, feeling like a million bucks and went to go sit in the hot tub, while there I realized something.
I had wasted SO MUCH TIME convincing myself through my THOUGHTS that it was going to be miserable, that it was going to be cold, that I was going to hate it. When the reality is, the dread of it was WAY worse than the reality of it...And I started thinking--how often do we do that in life? With so many things? The dread of them are actually way worse than the reality of them. But we make it harder on ourselves by dreading it, by feeding the negative, by not being proactive; we allow ourselves to be parylized by fear, by the thought of 'what if' when many times the bad 'what ifs' weren't aren't going to happen and even if they did, it wouldn't be the end of the world. Hmm, how many moments, precious moments that I will never get back, have I wasted on the dread of something instead of just hopping to it?
Lesson learned. So the next day I decided to try this new attitude starting with swimming again in a cold pool. I showed up, ready to just do it, not contemplate how cold it might be and how miserable I might be if it were, instead, goggles on, swim cap on, ready set DIVE IN! And boom! Just like that the water felt great--cause this time I expected it to. This time, I expected it to be an enjoyable experience, this time, instead of letting the wind blow me, I was adjusting the sails...
Today, I'm going to try to apply that to other areas of my life, in my relationships, in my work, in my spiritual life, in my workouts...game on baby!
What are some areas you have dreaded then realized that the reality wasn't as bad as the dreading?
Make it an awesome day!
Maria
#livelove
