Every single year I am blessed with the opportunity to go to
my Great Aunt’s Cape House in Wellfleet with my Auntie Sarah and cousins. It’s
one of my favorite times of year because I get to see my family that lives in
Vermont, and Marconi Beach is one of the most beautiful beaches in New England.
One thing I do every single year is go for a run to the beach. A round trip run
is approximately 4 miles, which is about the average length of my typical runs
(when I run).
This year, like every other year, I laced up my running shoes and headed out
the door towards the beach. Or so I thought. I had a lot of exciting things on
my mind and I took a wrong turn. I was already a mile and a half in until I
even realized I was going the complete opposite direction. I realized I had two
options. I could turn around and head home, or I could turn around and finish
my goal even if that meant adding a few extra miles to the route.
To be honest with you the immediate thought that went through my mind was, “I’ll
turn around and go home, I can just do the beach run tomorrow”.
So I turned around and ran back the other direction towards home. But then it
hit me. Am I really going to let one small detour finish me from accomplishing
my goal? Am I really going to be a quitter?
How many times in life do we do this? We set our minds towards something, we
start working towards our goals, and then we hit a detour and just throw in the
towel.
How can we be so foolish!!! Henry Ford was broke and failed in his business not
once, but FIVE times before he became the famous name behind automobiles in
America. Bill Gates was a Harvard drop out. Walt Disney was fired by a
newspaper editor because, "he lacked imagination and had no good
ideas." Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, Socrates, Thomas Edison, Winston
Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, Orpah Winfrey, and Harry Truman were all written
off in their early days. Imagine where America would be today if they all
listened to the negative thoughts from both the outside views and their
internal views.
So right there and right then I decided not only am I going to finish the run
to the beach, I was also going to run on the beach, and then I was going to run
some more!
So I did. And I ran the longest run at the fastest pace I had to date. 8 miles
at an 8.5 min pace.
I know that with that kind of mentality I can take it into every part of my
life. Whether it be my fitness goals, my financial goals, my business goals,
whatever! If you can push past that negative voice inside your head, there is
absolutely NOTHING that you can’t accomplish!
