When you feel like an underdog in life, gain a new perspective on how to push through anyway.
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Welcome to the Be Your Best Self Blog by Marsha Abbott.
"What Do You Do Next?"
You are in the midst of an important race…running as fast as you can…but things aren’t going well, and you feel you just can’t win at this point…what do you do next?
Good old social media! Sometimes we love it, and sometimes it can be our worst enemy. Well fortunately, about two months ago, I had one of those really great experiences with Facebook that ended up giving me the inspiration I needed to write this blog today. And I can’t wait to share with you what I saw, but most importantly what I learned…
I was bored one night just scrolling through my Facebook news feed when all of a sudden, a video popped up that had gone viral. As I paused to watch, to see what the fuss was all about, I was in complete and utter astonishment as to what unfolded right in front of my eyes.
It was about a 7-year-old girl who was in the midst of a school race. She took off running as fast as her little legs could carry her, but then one of her shoes unexpectedly fell off. She paused, ran back to grab the shoe, and put it back on. Now at this point, she had two choices: She could just stop running and go back to the coach’s bench knowing all of the other kids were so much further ahead of her, or she could choose to keep running as fast as possible anyway.
Let’s pause to reflect here for a minute –
Imagine this story is instead about your life. And maybe it’s not really about a school race at all. Maybe it’s about a different “race” in life. It could be about the career path you are traveling on in this moment. It could be about your journey through marriage or your path to starting a family. Maybe it is even about your effort to learn something new that is so hard but ultimately, so valuable. If you are on any of these paths, and suddenly life throws you some obstacles where it seems impossible to finish…impossible to win because your “shoe” also falls off unexpectantly in the midst of it all…what do you do next?
Our first instinct typically tells us to just stop…to quit…to go back to the drawing board and forget all about it, because there is just no way this is going to work anymore. That is what our first instinct usually tells us to do. But does it have to be that way? Is our fate really sealed? Are we destined to lose in these types of situations?
It took a brave 7-year-old to teach me that this doesn’t always have to be the case. And by now, you can probably guess what this courageous young woman did next…
As she grabbed her fallen shoe and put it back on her foot, she turned back to a race where all of her competitors seemed to be miles ahead of her. Yet she took off running anyway. She ran as fast as she possibly could to try to catch up. She didn’t even hesitate. She didn’t even consider any other option. She just ran. She just tried to win. Now the best part of this story: Not only did she catch up to all of those kids ahead of her, but she also passed them and ended up winning that race! That’s right…she WON! And that win ended up teaching me a huge life lesson. It can teach us all a very important life lesson…
This young girl’s story teaches us all that no matter how daunting the “race” for those important goals in life may be…no matter how much we feel like the underdog…no matter how often things seem to be crumbling around us…no matter how often others around us tell us that we will fail, that there is no chance of winning…we can still make the decision to push on with all of our might. We can move forward and do everything in our power to try to win that “race” in life anyway…to accomplish those goals.
Because one of the greatest pleasures in life is doing what people say cannot be done….
And I am certain that everyone sitting in those stands during that girl’s race would have absolutely believed that her winning…well it just couldn’t be accomplished…it just wasn’t possible…
Yet…she did it anyway!
So once again, you are in the midst of an important “race” in your life. You are running as fast as you can, but things aren’t going well. It seems to you and everyone else in your life that this win isn’t going to be possible. There is just no way…SO…
What do you do next?
Xoxo
Marsha
*For those of you struggling with something in life or have a topic of interest that you want me to talk about in this blog, email me at BeYourBestSelfBlog@gmail.com. Let’s work together to Be Our Best Selves!