What have you done today to make you feel proud?
Yesterday I ran nearly 7 miles and it was the first time I’d run that kind of distance in several years. It was tough, it definitely wasn’t fast and, until I reached about 6 miles, I wasn’t even sure if I was going to be able to do it.
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But towards the end, I started to feel an immense sense of pride for a number of different reasons.
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I’m not in optimal shape at the moment, having let my inherent laziness and emotion-driven behaviours take charge again for much of 2015. I’ve gained about 10kgs (when one of my publicised goals for 2015 was to lose exactly that amount – whoopsy), am finding it pretty easy to slip into a negative headspace and much harder to get into a more disciplined ‘just do it’ mindset.
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So the pride was for my nearly 37 year old 84kg lumpy bumpy jiggly body that, even when not in prime condition, it could still carry me all that way with relatively few niggles.
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And the pride was for my mind that, in spite of having a tough weekend where I’d spent quite a bit of time feeling like poop, I got my arse moving, motivated my body to keep going and “enjoyed” the journey along the way (there was a 5 min period between battersea and vauxhall that I didn’t enjoy quite so much).
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Once I recognised this feeling of pride in myself, I wallowed in it for a bit but then noticed how long it had been since I’d last felt that way…..proud of myself. Why was this?
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We all seem to find it hard to dwell on the positive things that we’ve done, much more tempting to analyse and invest time/brain power in the things that remain work in progress and, certainly for me, I don’t think I’ve really had the balls or the discipline recently to push myself out of my comfort zone to enable me to achieve something which I could easily recognise as worthy of self-pride.
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And it felt important that it was me, not someone else, that was feeling the pride for something I’d done. I’d like to think that others close to me are or have been proud of me for other ways that I’ve been or things that I’ve done recently. That’s great and I’d do well to acknowledge that more often. But I can’t help but feel that there’s something quite different about being proud of yourself.
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After all, most of us are our own worst critics so if you can impress that tough customer then you must have done something really great!
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Also, we often think of pride as only being associated with big events – getting a new job, passing an exam, overcoming a significant hurdle/setback. But, what about the snippets of pride that we could have for all the little steps along the way to these big achievements?
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This is where something quite powerful can happen. If recognised and harnessed, the little steps can generate momentum and, before you know it, you’ve achieved something much bigger which changes your life, or someone else’s, or will go down in your own personal history book as one of your many great moments.
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What if we can understand that the real magic and the true pride for yourself is contained in all the little steps that you take along the way? We can live more in the moment, we can feel that nice sensation of pride a bit more often, we can get our head around or get our arse in gear to do something small which might just lead to something big.
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So, back to Heather Small……what will you do today to make yourself feel proud?
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I’m going to publish this blog post.
