Keeping a positive head space when you feel like giving up

Keeping a positive head space when you feel like giving up

Thoughts
Published on 20:55 By This Ruth Is On Fire
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This post is going to read a little self- deprecating to begin with and I really don't intend for it to turn into a pity party so hear me out because I promise you that it has a good message behind it and hopefully you will find that it ends on a positive note too, so here goes. 
Anybody that knows me well will tell you that although I always try and approach new experiences with good intentions I am very quick to get frustrated and despondent if I do not master something straight away. Take snowboarding for instance (side note: Sam actually taught me how to snowboard over a ski season in NZ and she had the patience of a saint to persevere with me), I struggled with it as often people do. I was not a skater or surfer prior to it so the entire phenomenon of flinging myself down a hill, on a board, was completely foreign to me and I did not take it well when I bailed. Ohhhh yes, I would rip my goggles off and chuck them aside (only to retrieve them with my tail between my legs because they were hella expensive), I would blame everyone else and tell Sam that I just 'couldn't do it'- basically my attitude was terrible. But...the more that I worked at it, inevitably the better I got and the less I moaned and the more I enjoyed myself. I pushed myself harder and would be amped after taking on more difficult runs. I look back, laugh, and shake my head about how serious I took it at the start. 

 The same with surfing in NZ; I was far too unfit to take on the bigger waves, I had no upper body strength to keep popping up time after time and I was quite frankly far too scared of the sea. I would get so discouraged and instead of working at it every day I eventually gave up for a while because I had made it so 'un fun'. I think it was a combination of a lack of confidence in myself and my abilities, a slight embarrassment that I looked so un-elegant flapping around in the white wash and that awful C word...no not that one...I mean comparison. I would watch other surfers who had probably been surfing since they could walk and I would find myself wondering why, after only trying a handle of times, that I didn't look like them in the water. Ridiculous really but that is how my funny little brain works. 

 Hindsight is such a wonderful thing and I can see now that if I had just taken these things less seriously then I would have had more fun learning them, which would have made me want to do them more, which would have meant that I would improve more and subsequently enjoy myself more. Simple really when you think about it. 

 I caught up with a close friend this week who recently completed the London marathon and although she has always been a swimmer, so she is relatively fit, she has never considered herself a runner and so I was keen to find out how she tackled training and completing a 26 mile run! She reiterated what I already thought that, as with any large feat, it is 100% a mind game and if you convince yourself that you can complete something then you simply will. If you tell yourself that you can't do it then you simply won't do it. Her attitude towards the whole event was so relaxed and she seemed to take everything in her stride (pun intended) which proved to be far more productive then stressing about it. 
I think I've come to a point in my life now where I can look back and realise some of the mistakes that I've made when approaching new things in the past and can identify ways in which to change this in the future. The process of learning is such a wonderful thing and it makes me sad that I've wasted so much time by putting pressure on being good at something straight away rather than working hard and enjoying the process. I don't think that I'm much fun to be around when I'm pulling a stonker because I'm not Kelly Slater after one afternoon on a surfboard and nobody ever wants to be known as the 'debbie downer' of the group so I'm trying to adopt a much more positive approach to taking on challenges in my future as it really doesn't matter if I look like a complete wally as long as I'm having a good time.

 What are some of the ways you try to keep positive when taking on new challenges? I'd love to know in the comments below and also if you have any tips for keeping motivated when you feel like giving up please let me know. 
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This Ruth Is On Fire

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