I Must Confess....

Last week was not my most positive of weeks. It's embarassing to admit, but I, Princess Positive, was, well, not so positive. In fact I was downright grumpy, a little whiny, definately weepy and leaning towards being negative. Urgh.

I'm not sure what started it all. Maybe the IBS, lack of food, lack of sleep, heavy workouts.... who knows, but it was amazing how fast it all seemed to snowball! You would have thought that I, who has spent most of her free time reading up on mental training and how to stay strong would have seen it coming, but nope - it still got me. 'It' being negativity and fear.

The good thing is it didn't last long. This morning I woke up and, as I had for the past few days, thought , 'my quads hurt and I'm tired'. As I drove to my swim before work I was still thinking 'I'm tired'. In fact, I got to the point where I was trying to figure out what workout I could drop so I could sleep more and rest. It was all I could focus on!

As I got into the pool I was STILL thinking, I'm tired. Sigh. How the heck was I going to swim 3000 m?? It was nuts how much I was focussing on being tired. I'm not sure what finally clicked, but after a few hundred meters I thought to myself, what the heck am I doing???? If I continually think I am tired, well then, I'll be tired! DUH! And if I keep on this path of negative thinking I am not going to reach my goals, and I'm not going to have fun. What the heck have I been reading all that stuff about mental training for if I am going to start this now???

So I stopped thinking I'm tired, and started thinking 'I have energy'. Each stroke was one word 'stroke 1 - I, stroke 2 - have, stroke 3 - energy, breathe!'. And I gotta tell ya, the universe delivered! I had a GREAT swim! I finished my swim in just over an hour and felt SO strong. The longer I went, the more I thought 'I have energy' and the stronger I was.

It was awesome. It was reinforcement of what I have read - that positive thought can be a very powerful thing...and without it, one likely won't succeed.

Now for the funny twist on all this...I didn't have a swim scheduled for this morning. LOL. Because I'm going to do the Sylvan Lake 1/2 IM this weekend, my coach re did my schedule and I had a rest day today....but I didn't realize it!! Oh well, I'm really glad I went swimming - after all, I had a great time and I got out of my slump. Princess Positive is back!