that little voice

My New Year's resolution is to not listen to that little voice. You know, the one in the back of your head that tells you all sorts of nasty things. That you weigh too much, you're not cute enough, that you're just not good enough for a million and one silly reasons. Why are we our own worst critics?

That little voice nearly got the best of me on Tuesday when I headed into a heavy snow to run. By the second mile, I was miserable. My shirts were soaked through with snow, it kept getting into my eyes, and I was worried about my phone getting ruined with all the moisture. But the worst part is that I wasn't listing off these reasons in my head. Instead I was thinking, "This is so dumb. I'm not even a real runner. Only real runners should be out in this. I'm just pretending." And so on. It was awful and dumb. I ran past the gas station and people were looking at me like I was nuts, and I thought, "They're totally like, 'that girl is so slow. who is she fooling?'" And yeah, they WERE thinking I was nuts, but I'm sure they weren't thinking it like that.

I finally stopped and ignored the little voice. Partly because I was three miles from home by that point, so I might as well just keep running, but partly because I forced myself to ignore it. Even if I'm not a real runner, even if I really didn't HAVE to go out and run Tuesday morning, I did. I dodged snow plow spray and stuck to sidewalks to avoid fishtailing cars. I had so much snow on me that I had top and brush off my fuel belt every mile or so. My hair was soaking wet by the time I was finished. The tracks I left at mile one were almost filled in by the time I ran back past them at mile six.

Mile seven put me right in front of my house, and I was so glad to get inside and take a hot shower. But more than that, I'm glad I ignored that nasty little voice.

Tell me, what does your little voice tell you? I bet it isn't true.