I’ve always believed that I was quite effective in the ‘not giving up on stuff’ department, in fact more than once I’ve confidently used the words tenacious and determined to describe myself. I can think of some cracking examples throughout my life where I’ve clung on till my fingertips bled in pursuit of something I believed in, and I’d even count one or two successful visits to Skinny Town in the past as examples I can bandy about of me being hardcore when it counts.
Except when I say clung on until my fingertips bled, I am of course speaking metaphorically. No actual bleeding happened, because that would have meant pain, and I don’t do pain. I mean don’t get me wrong, there are times in your life when you can’t avoid it – having a baby for example, or getting sick.
To be fair when my boy was born I wheeled out the diva and demanded so much pain relief I was probably stoned for his first six months, but I have been through some other tough medical stuff where I had to just suck it up. I’ve talked in here before about the run in I had with the big C which involved a fair few cut and shut jobs. Sometimes you don’t have a choice and getting on with it is the only option open to you.
But pain, in pursuit of a goal? You know, when you have a choice, and could choose not to hurt..? That I’m finding it harder to get my head around. And before you laugh and call me a fanny, I know I’m only talking about six minutes on a cross trainer on the lowest setting, it’s hardly the north face of the Eiger, right? But don’t forget I’m carrying the equivalent of a whole other person around in my pants, and no matter how large or small the frame of reference, pain is pain. I did six minutes this morning and it hurt.
I almost gave up…it was a really close call that I didn’t. The asshole in my head was determined to build on his victory from yesterday when I’d programmed ten minutes but managed only five. I did complete the other five minutes last night before I went to bed but made the rookie mistake of not warming up or cooling down – I mean come on it was five lousy minutes, who knew it even mattered? For future reference, it does.
My legs were bitching at me before I’d even opened my eyes this morning and I made the journey from the bed to the cross-trainer in the style of Norman Wisdom, a fact shamelessly exploited by the asshole voice as a reason to quit as I winced my way through six minutes of hurt.
I’m really going to need to get a handle on this. When you google phrases like pushing through the pain, or digging deep to achieve your goals, you get hundreds and hundreds of inspirational quotes, but not a single bloody one that tells you how. I don’t need platitudes, I need advice and it’s a bit thin on the ground.
I’m scared that I’ll give up…there, I’ve said it. I’m scared that when the going gets tough I’ll just fold and think nah, not for me. And I can’t. I need to learn how not to give up, and practice not giving up ’till it’s baked into my psyche. Imagine if I’m halfway over that mountain in Cuba, and I get a blister that really hurts. They’re hardly going to call mountain rescue are they? I’ll be expected to just bloody get on with it and stop moaning. I need to find a way of pulling out the kind of mental resilience which keeps you nailed on to the task in hand even when you hurt.
If there was a pit of crocodiles under the cross trainer, or some device primed to blow my buns off if I slipped below so many strides per minute I’d have no choice but to keep going…right now my kit-bag of reasons not to quit is feeling a bit light, so any suggestions would be gratefully considered 🙂
