Your Words Are Your Energy

Your Words Are Your Energy

By: Araceli Ortiz

     Inspired by the challenges and accomplishments of my fitness journey…
     I have always admired people who have enough self-discipline to go to the gym or go running regardless of our unpredictable weather.  How do they do it? What keeps them going? These were some of the questions I set out to answer as I, myself, jumped on my own bandwagon on my own fitness journey. That first week I was so motivated and proud of myself that I even signed up to run my first half marathon. 

     I AM NOT RUNNER.

     As time passed I realized that my motivation was dying off.  I started feeling tired, my schedule was getting too busy, and I soon began make up every excuse possible in the universe to not go running.  If running is good for me than why did I make up all these barriers for myself?  Soon, I noticed that whenever I told myself I “should” do something (anything including running) I would feel very overwhelmed, stressed, tired, and irritated. But most importantly, if I didn't get the task done I would end up feeling guilty and disappointed with myself. I found this pattern to be very counterproductive for not only my marathon training but for life in general.

It took me a couple of weeks of battling with this internal conflict to finally accept what I was doing wrong.  I had to remind myself why I decided to run in the first place. The answer was simple. I wanted to be healthier.  “Wanting” something normally stems from a place of desire and passion. I like to say that it comes from a deep place in your heart.  On the days I  REALLY don’t want to go running I close my eyes and tell myself I “want” to be healthy or I “want” to give my body this gift of running. As a result, I actually find myself being more energetic and I end up running more than I set my goal to be.

My grand discovery so far is my words have power and energy. Words can either prevent or push you to move forward in life. It is up to us to decide what your internal dialogue sounds like and what we really “want ‘to accomplish in our lifetime.