How I Used The Power of Story to Overcome Self-doubt
Legendary in 3 min
🚨 WARNING: EXPLICIT 🚨
July 14th, 2023, the shit hit the fan (literally... well almost).
A sharp and angry pain from my stomach woke me in the middle of the night. I dropped to the floor hyperventilating and sweating. I struggled to speak and used all my strength to whisper to my wife “Hey sweet, I’m in trouble…”
I was passing blood with every painful jab.
The next few hours was a blur.
Paramedics. Ambulance. Emergency Room.
I endured 48 hours of being poked, prodded, with nothing to eat but sips of water, I went from 100% healthy to a pile of mush laying in bed - my personal hell. I barely had enough strength to take a few steps.
Luckily, it turned out to be an acute incident. Everything came back normal.
Not too jazzed about being in the hospital
After I left the hospital, the first thing that came to my mind was my Half-Marathon in September.
In 2022, I ran my first 13.1 mile race at 02:01:07 after 12 weeks of training. I wrote a post about failure as I wanted to run under 2 hours.
I looked at the calendar and I had 8 weeks.
Fuck.
I thought about giving up right there...
I haven't ran for a year due to injury after the race last year
An MRI a few months ago found a severe/ complete tear of my right ankle ATL (anterior talofibular ligament)
I had Achilles tendonitis after a short walk/run a few weeks before
Now this.
How can I reach my goal let alone complete the race?
It was hard enough training for it in 12 weeks, now 8?
I almost felt relieved about not having to train, but then something stirred in me:
When things get hard, embrace the suck
I used to be that kid who gave up on everything, but not anymore.
So I came up with a story
Coming out of the hospital, Howie only had 8 weeks before the half-marathon.
Instead of giving up, he trained.
He did all the uncomfortable things he didn't want to do
Rain or shine. Cold or hot. He went out there at four in the morning and ran.
Not only did he complete the race, he ran his fastest time in under two hours.
Legend 🤘🏽
This story kept me going.
Every time I didn't want to get up.
Every time I didn't want to put on my shoes.
Every time I didn't want to run the same path along the river.
Trust me, there were many days I didn't want to do any of it.
I repeated the story in my head.
In my mind it was already true. What's left was for me to follow the storyline and reach its inevitable conclusion.
Personal Record 01:55:20
Even as I ran, I repeated the story in my head, pushing me to run at the time I needed to make that story true.
See a short mash-up of my training and finishing video - you'll see my struggle...
If you ever find yourself stuck and in a tough spot, write out your story, your legend.
I can't promise it'll always come true, but it sure helps to make you do all the things you don't want to do, so you can achieve the things you want.
Try it for yourself, use it to push you forward and form more of those legendary moments and memories.
Here is the previous issue about rewriting stories to legends.
PS. My acute ischemic colitis remains a medical mystery but I've been feeling 100% - will keep going down the rabbit hole to figure out what happened...
PPS. I would love to hear about your legends! Just hit reply!
See you next Sunday.
Live your legend 🤘🏽,
