Well that was a day

I had a day today. It wasn’t a bad day. It wasn’t a great day. It was just a day. I woke up and did my morning routine. Drink a pre-workout drink, do a workout, drink a post workout drink, shower, get dressed, run out the door to work as a crossing guard where I only have one child who crosses daily. He’s in middle school and doesn’t even need to be crossed, but people don’t slow down and they are paying me to do it, so I say “good morning.” He says, “good morning.” I tell him to have a fantastic day. He says, “you too.” And I go back to my regularly scheduled program of waving to parents and people who refuse to slow down in a school zone. It was also 23 degrees outside today.

I look at the forecast daily, so I knew I wasn’t going to run when I got up and it was well below freezing. I even thought I had dressed accordingly. I had on 3 pairs of socks, 2 pairs of pants, 3 shirts, a hoodie, a coat, a hat, 2 face masks, and a pair of gloves. I was all bundled up. I felt prepared. I am rarely right when I am that confident. I froze my feet off. Literally, after an hour of standing outside, I thought I might possibly have frostbite. I came home and took off my shoes and all of my socks and crawled back into bed under the covers for 15 minutes while rubbing my feet together to warm them up.

The rest of the day went as suspected. I drove around taking pictures of houses (it’s my 2nd gig). The sun was finally shining. The temperature was up to 42 degrees. I felt like summer had returned after the morning that I had. I got home, made dinner, watched a Christmas movie.

Literally, nothing out of the ordinary. I didn’t get any bad news today. I didn’t get cut off in traffic. Nothing happened.

And yet, I felt like a miserable failure all day. It’s funny how that happens, isn’t it? Everything is just going. Nothing changes. But something in your head clicks and it’s like, “Hello!!! Here’s your friendly reminder that YOU ARE NOT ENOUGH!!!”

I really hate that fucking voice.

As you may have read in an earlier post, I started a fitness/wellness journey a couple of months ago. I think it was September. So for about 3 months, I have changed my nutrition, I’ve worked out every day, I’ve journaled, read personal development books, used my mindfulness planner daily, got outside in the fresh air. I’ve done all the things the professionals “recommend” to be your best, most successful self. I’ve lost 20 pounds, I’ve lost 3 pants sizes, I’ve lost over 6 inches in my waist, I ran almost 2 miles straight without stopping the other day.

And for the most part, I feel good about all those things. But on top of all of that, I decided that I wanted to be a wellness coach for the programs that I am doing aka I started my own business. It’s definitely a network marketing thing and to be successful you have to work it like a business and put in the hours and the time, but I can’t seem to get out of my own way right now.

Self doubt is a mother trucker, that’s for sure! And the crazy thing is, I know LOTS of people. I also know LOTS of people who could totally benefit from the program I am using and will be promoting (eventually), but I am having a hard time hitting the ground running, because I feel like an unreliable source.

I haven’t done the programs very long. I have seen major results, but I still haven’t proven to myself that I am consistent. Which is CRAZY, because I’ve gotten up at 5 am for over a month to make sure I get my workout in. If anybody else was doing that, I would say they are hella consistent, but, like most people, I am my own worst critic and I despise lack of authenticity.

I’ve done all the trainings. I know what starting this business is SUPPOSED to look like. I’m supposed to jump into all of my friends and family’s inboxes and ask them to come join me on this journey. And I WANT to do that, but I don’t feel like I have enough reliability or results under my belt to confidently do that. Plus, the number of supportive family members I have is VERY small. One of my sisters literally said, “I will support you from a distance, but I’m not buying anything.” And that’s OK. But I especially don’t want to come off as a sleazy sales person to my friends who I love and respect. I refuse to send “hey, girl, hey, join my team” messages. And I haven’t found my voice or my confidence yet. I’ve mentioned it to people who I genuinely think would benefit and everyone is on their own journey so when the timing is right, things will fall into place and if the timing is never right, that’s OK too. It took me a year to finally say yes to taking care of myself.

I want to be authentic. I want to be inspiring. I want to get to the place where I feel confident looking in the mirror and know all the hard work I did to get there has paid off. And I feel like I can’t lead others and help them get there until I get myself there. Like I said, I just keep making excuses and getting in my own way.

This is not meant to be a pity party or a way to fish for compliments. I just wanted to get all of that out of my head and into the world because people who know me have this idea that I am always happy and I’m always an optimist and I never doubt anything because I know everything will work out in the end. “She always lands on all fours” they say. “She could fall in shit and come out smelling like roses,” they say. “I think you have too much serotonin in your brain, nothing bothers you,” they say. And for the most part, I guess most of that is true, but today I just had a day. Nothing is wrong. I just had a day. And I didn’t drink to cope with it like I would have a year and half ago and to me, that’s a small win.

So the next time you just have one of those days, give yourself a little bit of grace and have a tall glass of water.