Failing

I’m failing. No question about it. Failing at a lot of things. 50K training, weight loss, healthy nutrition, life planning, professional development, maintaining a productive daily schedule, getting my butt out of bed every morning on time…

I have to keep reminding myself, however, I am not a failure.

I do get up every day and just because I paused my 30-day yoga challenge for a bit, doesn’t mean I won’t restart it today. I might not be sticking to my ultra-marathon training schedule, but a 10K hike over rugged terrain is still doable for me.

I don’t know the psychology behind it, but I know it’s easier for many of us (Me. Me, that’s me!) to see our faults—what we’re not doing right—more so than our daily successes. Speaking for myself, I get so caught up in these failures, putting so much emphasis and attention on what I’m not doing, I can completely discount the things I have done.

The internal dialog goes something like this:

“I’m so excited. I hiked over 2 miles on the River Place Canyon Trail today! That trail is so challenging. So many steps and so much climbing.”

“Oh, yeah? If you’d been hydrated, like you should have been, you could have hiked twice as far. And if you were training like you’re supposed to be, you could have hiked that whole segment—out and back—instead of turning back after only a mile. That’s what you should have done.”

And, just like that, it’s not enough. I’ve “failed” again.

I do have a choice which side of that argument I align myself with. These days, I’m strongly on the “something-accomplished-is-succeeding” side of things. Yet, keeping up the necessary mental gymnastics to stay ahead of the “not-good-enough” gremlins in my subconscious is exhausting.

The negative self-judgment is so entrenched and automatic, it happens effortlessly. Being self-compassionate and understanding when I’m feeling too “overwhelmed” to go out in public for a scheduled training run? That takes effort. And it’s so tiresome. So much back and forth over the same mental ground and usually ending up back at the “you didn’t do enough” place in the path again.

This is all on my mind right now because I’m stuck. Again.

Throughout this spring and summer, I’ve been fairly active—in spite of recovering from my shoulder surgery. Active socially, volunteering at trail race events, meeting friends for hikes or dinner. Active physically, participating monthly in events, completing many training sessions. Active mentally, kicked off that whole Atomic Habits thing, writing more, being more productive in general. (Always a good sign when I’m regularly washing dishes. 😉)

I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise that I “bonked” at the end of June.

I wasn’t training consistently enough to complete my first ultra in September, not to mention my first marathon in July. Schedules with my friends weren’t working out so I was mostly attending events solo. Never as fun, and it was feeling more like an obligation than a hobby. Quarterly goals were slipping by undone (again) as I consistently refused to prioritize time for personal development. I was feeling overwhelmed, disappointed, and totally without control.

“I just need a break,” I told myself.

I canceled registrations for all my upcoming 2024 events. Withdrew, with apologies, my volunteer offers for upcoming July and August races. Reset my 50K training plan to begin—again. (How many times have I reset this plan now?)

I felt I just needed all the pressure off. A few days of laying around to recover from the last race and volunteer stint, a comfortable restart of my training at distances I could easily manage, and a cleared calendar giving me my pick of whatever days and hours I wanted to devote to personal projects outside of training. It was all I needed, right? This reset?

A week and a half later, I found myself still spending most of my time in bed. Not necessarily sleeping away the day, but rather using my bed as a “recliner” where I spent my time listening to one audiobook after another, simultaneously keeping my hands busy coloring hundreds of pictures in Color by Number on my Android.

I recognized the pattern. Of course, I did. It’s what I do when I’m depressed. Except, I wasn’t sleeping 16-20 hours a day and I wasn’t feeling depressed. Most unusual, I wasn’t hearing all the internal recriminations about what a lazy, useless individual I am and can’t get my shit together.

Physically, I felt good and rested. Mentally, I wasn’t feeling much of anything. (I described it for my therapist as “apathetic.”)

Undeniably avoidance behavior, and certainly not healthy.

I don’t mess around with my mental health these days. I had to get a handle on this. Years of dealing with illness has proven I don’t simply “get over it.” Healing takes work on my part and the longer I delay, the more it costs me—in every aspect of my life; money, time, happiness… I got busy. (Be aware, I was already under pharmacological treatment for my mental illness. In my case, as with so many of us, it takes both types of treatment, cognitive and pharmacological, to balance the chemical interactions in my brain regulating my body’s responses.)

Therapy, of course, as I mentioned. But the work is mostly with me. (You’re pretty limited in what you can get accomplished in a 50-min therapy session 2-4 times a month.) I began picking and prodding at the behavior, looking for ways to break the pattern. I revisited Atomic Habits, re-reading portions of the book and tweaking my strategies. I doubled down on taking in adequate vitamins and minerals, water, and healthier foods—specifically, more protein, less simple carbohydrates.

If not outright depression, was it an issue of fatigue? Poor nutrition or hydration? Emotional? Some specific worry? What?

Despite being overly familiar with this behavior, I still went to the Internet looking for new perspectives and potential tools to counter it. I’m so glad I did because there were two things I found that gave me something to begin with. (Whether they work or not, they’ve gotten me doing something other than lying in bed listening to audiobooks and playing with my phone. 😜)

The first thing was the idea of creating a life-plan to provide long term direction and motivation. I know about goal setting, both short and long-term (SMART goals, anyone?), as well as visualizing success in those goals. However, the whole concept of a process whereby you assess and identify what you really want to be doing, and create what amounts to a 5- to 10-yr plan for your life (as if it were a business) escaped me until now. Apparently, it’s something college students are encouraged to do to provide focus on their future selves. A means of “living with intention.”

Second was an evoluntionary psychology theory pertaining to motivation. Or more accurately, the lack thereof. I stumbled across this in a blog post on PsychologyToday.com.

We all know when we fail at reaching our goals we begin to lose our motivation to continue the behaviors we’re using to reach those goals. The difficulty with losing weight is a classic example. But when your motivation drive is so low you can’t even get out of bed? We would just give up on the goal and move on before it got that bad, right?

“[People] end up lying in bed because they are overcommitted to goals that are failing badly,” Jonathan Rottenberg Ph.D. writes.

Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner! This really resonated with me, shifting my perspective a bit from the big picture to the smaller parts making up that whole.

Without having to think about it too much, I know I’m overcommitted to the goal of being a serious senior endurance athlete. I’ve been failing at it for over two years now, but I can’t seem to let the idea go.

I know the goal (image, idea, feat?) is tied up with how I identify myself. The physicality of my body which has been a constant throughout my life. I’m big (usually) and strong, tough and unconventional. (I reveled in the awe the guys in my class expressed when I produced photographic proof that I was working on a pulpwood truck at the age of 13. A girl?! Really?) I’ve always taken that identity, along with the health and physical resilience of my body, for granted.

However, I’m a “senior” citizen now and age inexorably robs us of more and more of our physical and mental capabilities. How much we lose can be limited by what we do and how we care for ourselves in our senior years. Still, loss of some function and capability will continue as the years go by. I’m still big and strong, tough and unconventional, but… How strong? How tough? Can I still challenge my body and have it respond? My mind?

I jumped into an active, athlete’s lifestyle in my 50s with a “now or never” mentality. And I thrived! Then injury…and a recurrence of mental illness. I’ve spent a lot of the past 8 years being sedentary, struggling with depression and, to a lesser degree, anxiety. My confidence in my physicality took a big hit and I’ve yet to recover.

All that to say: I get it. I understand why I’m overcommitted to this idea of being an old lady badass.

The question that I’m trying to find the answer to is, “Can I?”

And the answer I find when I look inside myself is, “Yes! If you put in the training.” I believe that. Very much so.

Oh, I realize I probably won’t ever be the oldest female to finish Western States. But a 60+ female athlete who regularly runs ultras and continues into her 70s? Of course! I’m strong and tough with a resilient body. Why not?

Why not? Because I’m not doing the training!

So how do I get my mojo back? How do I get my mind back into that headspace where I can build the discipline I need? Train my body back to the strength and endurance needed for the sport? A mindset where the process is melded to my identity and it’s just what I do? Who I am?

You’ll recognize the solution, of course. Being mindful. Living in the present.

“What’s past is past (depression). What’s in the future hasn’t happened (anxiety). Focus on what you’re doing and accomplishing now.”

I recognize it, too, although it took a slightly different presentation to keep my instant “Been there, done that. And it doesn’t work for me” response from dismissing it completely. The idea was of making the goal(s) about the everyday behaviors of a chosen lifestyle. Let go of the larger goal and focus on goals that can be set anew each day. The idea being, I’m motivated enough to get out of bed and work on a goal every day.

That, I can work with.

I do want to acknowledge, I recognize my “identity” as a gray-haired endurance badass may be a false one. The wishful thinking of an old woman. However, I still have to answer the question of whether it is or is not who I am if I’m ever going to figure out who I will be.

I’ll keep you posted.