Category Archives: Life

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Where is Your Finish Line?

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stick_figure_race_finish_400_clr_6285You don’t have to enter an official “race” to talk about your finish line.

We all have finish lines almost every day of our lives. It depends on how you define that phrase. I see people whose finish line is the end of a work day or perhaps the achievement of a goal.  Maybe it’s when the kids go to bed or when you go to bed or even when you stop working for the night.

The point I want to emphasize, though, is that the fact is you “cross” the finish line – you don’t stop right at it. You keep going in other words. You move on to something else. If it were a running race, perhaps you’d move on to your car or the food table or your home. But you’d keep going – somewhere.

In all of life you have to keep going or you get stuck and stagnate. This happens frequently when people fail to look beyond the achievement of one goal. When they’ve reached the conclusion of that one, they have a let down period and get depressed and often just stop doing anything. It takes a great deal of momentum to pick back up again. It’s much better if you anticipate the end of one project and already have a new “goal” or finish line delineated.

There really is NO finish line except perhaps death and that is even debatable depending on your view of the afterlife..

Stop demarcating your life with various arbitrary finish lines or at least change their name to something cute that simulates “new start line” (that’s not cute but you can come up with your own term).

It would also be of use for you to do an inventory (it’s past time for a midyear inventory anyway) of all your past finish lines and what they led to next. It will give you a much better timeline of your life and your growth than the Facebook timelines. Go way back and see if you can list everything you achieved and then what came next. See if you can see a nexus between the two. I bet there will be because most of what happens to us is NOT random despite what we may think.

Stop wishing for the end, just think about the next step. We don’t really want to reach the end – we want to reach the beginning of something new because it will have been based upon your last achievement. Case in point – I just finished the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life (my Trek across Tennessee) but when I crossed that finish line, I knew it was simply the beginning of processing all I learned while out there alone as well as figuring out what I would do if the physical damage I experienced is irreparable and I can’t run again, or what I will reach for if it does resolve. There were so many openings in my life and soul once I crossed that finish line – it was the beginning of a new life!

Where are your finish lines leading you? Have some fun exploring!

Terrie

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Running Is Not About Racing, Speed or Perfection

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running is You all know how much I love running. And you know I enter several races a year. You might wonder why just running around my area isn’t enough for me – why do I have to enter a race when I know I’m never going to win. That’s a very valid question. To me, running is about life and living. I thrive on it. I found out recently how much it does matter to me because I went through a period where I didn’t really care if I ran or not. I had some reason (aka excuse) every morning not to go out there. And I have never been an afternoon runner so that was out too. I’d lost my motivation – completely. I don’t know what happened but I was having other problems at the time too and I think I was afraid to run.

But I had signed up for the 72 hour event I did last weekend and wanted to go even though I was pitifully trained (or not trained at all actually since I came back from Tennessee in July and had to recover from my back injury) and then I was experiencing a great deal of life and work stress so all components were out of whack. But I started to pay attention to my nutrition (more about that on another blog/page – but it’s essential that we pay attention to our nutrition) and as a result I started to feel some better. Amazingly during and after last weekend, I felt better than I have in about 3 months. I don’t know why but what I do know is that I realized how much running was life for me and how much the family and love that I have experienced in my ultra running is what it’s all about. I won’t win any races ever but I win every time I go to one because I meet new people (even shy little me meets others) and I rekindle relationships with those I’ve met before. And I am always welcomed with open arms and I feel so much a part of one big family when I’m there. That provides more nutrition for the soul and spirit than you can imagine.

What do you have in your life that can provide you this much sustenance? I hope you have some activity that provides you the same degree of love, family and joy that running and ‘racing’ does for me.

I have to tell this one amazing story. It was the middle of the night on night two and it was raining but along came this young man passing me but he knew who I was and told me he had read my post on “life is like an ultramarathon” and he enjoyed it. That meant so much to me. It kind of made the whole weekend in one way. But what really made the weekend was seeing the folks I met last year and having them take care of me the whole time. It’s brought me back to real life and happiness.

Find something that represents love and life for you and do it, no matter what!

Terrie

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Valentine’s Day – It’s NOT Just For “Lovers”

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heart_puzzle_piece_missing_pc_400_clr_4847Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

I’m still on a high about last weekend’s accomplishment even though I’m trying not to brag. I did have a fun surprise though when my business coach, Rich German,  told the whole group about my achievement. I had told him of course because it’s one reason I hadn’t done the work I was supposed to do for him (ha ha – always looking for excuses) and he told everyone even though it had nothing to do with our course. But that was kind of nice. It was an act of “love” and caring.

Which leads me to today’s topic. People think of Valentine’s Day as being only for “lovers” but I like to look at it as being for everyone who loves something. For example, my running family is full of love – probably more than I’ve ever experienced on any Valentine’s Day in my past.  And they express that love every single day. Loving someone or something means being there for them WHENEVER they need it (and even when they don’t need it but you want to let them know you’re thinking of them).

Practice putting love into your daily life and even today try to tell others “Happy Valentine’s Day” even if you’re risking funny looks. Isn’t making someone else feel better worth a funny look? You have no idea what’s going through that person’s mind and how they are feeling and your three words might actually make a significant difference in their life (but that’s the subject of another post).

What do you love? Who do you love? What does love mean to you?

Remember to use your Gratitude Journal to express your love to the universe even if you don’t do it to another individual. Gratitude is THE most powerful force in the Universe! Write it out, type it out, think it, just DO IT! Saying your “gratitudes” will help you create your own reality in a positive way. You get more of what you put out every day. So put out that love and gratitude that you’re feeling!

Terrie

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It’s All Mental….

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iStock_000000796345XSmallSo, tomorrow is my BIG day – my attempt to run a 50 mile race!

I have done two of them before – but……that was 15 years ago AND they were on asphalt – this is on a trail – trails have rocks and roots – R2 or “R Squared”.

Those are two major differences. But I can’t dwell on the past or the fact that things are markedly different now than then. The fact is that some things are better and some things are worse (example – I’m in better overall fitness now than I was 15 years ago but I haven’t trained as much for the ultra part of this run as I did 15 years ago).

I do KNOW that my body can handle the distance – maybe that’s an illusion but I don’t think so. It’s merely a matter of how long it’s going to take me to cover those 50 miles and the inconvenience I’ll be causing those who support the race. It’s liable to take me 17 hours to do this. I do not like the idea that other people will have to “hang around” to wait for me. But, they will probably never find anyone as grateful to them if they do and if I complete this run. They and all the other folks that have been supporting me and cheering me on are my real heroes and idols. I have never felt so supported and encouraged and accepted by anyone in my life as I have with this group of phenomenal people. I can’t find enough words even to describe what they mean to me.

Thus, I have to put my worries aside and just concentrate on the task at hand – actually it’s two tasks – one is to stay UPRIGHT which any of you who know me and my running sagas know is a challenge in itself because I can (and have) tripped over a bump in the asphalt. And of course the second goal is to complete the entire 50 miles.

But I want to make this about the journey and not about the end result. And this is a lesson we all need to apply in life – if we depend on the end result to determine our joy then we might be sorely disappointed or unhappy. Let’s say that I don’t finish the full 50 miles but do 40. If everything was dependent on “finishing 50 miles” then it would be a total loss. However, if the joy and happiness I experience is dependent, not on the ultimate outcome, but on the journey so far and the journey I’ll step into tomorrow then two changes happen – 1) I can make it successful just by changing my mental attitude and 2) it will definitely be a success because I will be running (which I love), it’s a beautiful course (I’m so glad I went out and ran on it last weekend) and most of all the people there are wonderful and full of love and friendship.  So how can it possibly be anything but a success? It can’t. If my training for the New York City Marathon last year had all been dependent on the final outcome of finishing the marathon, I would have “wasted” an entire year because the marathon didn’t happen. But it was anything but a waste because it was my journey back into running and training and applying discipline while building my body with the greatest personal trainer in the world and applying discipline that I wasn’t sure I still had. Most importantly, though, it got me out of the office finally – and I continue to struggle daily with not falling back into that “come early, stay late” mentality that plagued me for over 4 years.

And last but not least – tomorrow is a special day for at least three terrific folks – 1 will be doing her 350th marathon, another her 300th and a third person will be doing his 52nd marathon in a year (this man is so deserving of that because he’s such a gentleman). These accomplishments, in and of themselves, are worthy of my being there just to celebrate with them. So no matter what happens in my story, my world, there will be great things happening in this group on Saturday.

Learn to look at everything from different perspectives and discover the best way to approach them and your life will be so much happier.

I’ll see you on the other side of 50!

Terrie

 

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The Cactus Parallels Our Lives….

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 I’m sure there are other plants that also parallel our lives but I’m not really a flower or plant person BUT I am a very big Cactus lover!

Every day when I come in I stop and look at my Cactus Patch – but some days I forget or some days (even weeks) I don’t come in through the front door. The next time I do, though, I see how big my babies have gotten and then there’s another little cactus bud. I am not sure why but I am fascinated by this. Perhaps because it’s slow compared to flowers which are fast bloomers and then in a day or two they are gone. The Cactus takes its time and buds off, then slowly grows into another “arm” (you can tell I don’t know much about these things being a city gal all my life so I invent my own terms).

Next thing you know, though, the Cactus plant has grown and grown and grown and is bending this way and that.

So what the heck does this have to with either metaphysics or with life?

Change happens slowly in our lives. If we expect to see obvious evidence of major change over night, we’ll continually be disappointed.

But If we step back, continue to move along our planned path, and then in a couple of weeks or, preferably, months look back at how far we’ve come, we’ll be surprised AND amazed. As with my race the other day, there’s absolutely NO WAY I would have predicted taking 12 minutes off a short distance like 3 miles in just a year. I’ve never done that before. And you know what? It was never my plan to do that either. But I worked my other plan and this was a very nice and rewarding side benefit of it. But if I had been looking at my times every single day, I would NOT have seen so much of a change and might even have become disappointed.

Like the Cactus we have to step back and view our lives and what’s happened periodically, not continually. Then, and only then will we be able to see that there’s been significant change and also evaluate what it is and what it means. Then, we can do something further about it – new goals sprout up just as the Cactus will grow a new bud because it has the foundation and the nutrients to feed that new bud – my goals have been rejuvenated because of that one little race I was doing just to support the cause (Epilepsy Foundation), not to see how good I could do. I was blown away and stimulated, enthused, invigorated, etc. As Abraham says “everything is always working out for me”. And I proved it. After my tremendous disappointment this month I wasn’t sure where I was running-wise – and it had spilled over into my attitude about everything else. I just felt blah. Now I know I can attack the world and climb back up on top and sprout a new bud!

Use Thanksgiving to do some reflection. Take a look at where you were 6 months ago (or you can go for the whole Enchilada as they say and do the whole year). How far have you come? Write it down. Put it in the comments. See what’s happened in your life. Don’t just go blithely along each day like a robot. See your progress and your change. Then do something with that information. Try to figure out what has happened and why there’s been the change. Or, if you think there’s been no change, try to look at that too. Maybe you need a team like I did. Maybe you need a coach like I did. Look at it and be grateful for it all.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone – even those not in the US – know that I am thankful that you are in my life!

Terrie