So this whole week I have really been struggling with many self-esteem issues. A lot of the time I have been focusing on the numbers of life instead of the moments of life. The numbers such as how much I weigh… how much weight I need to lose…. How skinny I used to be…. How slow I am now…. How fast I used to be. Well today I am going to try not to focus on the numbers even though I already looked at the scale this am. Even as I type this it is a struggle not to judge myself by those numbers. I got some great advice this week from an amazing friend who told me to focus on what would make me happy and made me realize that I need to figure out what that really is going to be and she also made me realize that I cannot let the rest of the world determine what that would be. So today I was cleaning my room and dusting off my trophies. It got me thinking about how happy I was in high school and why I was that happy in high school and how do I get back to being that happy. I realized that being skinny in high school ( I actually thought I wasn’t that skinny back then but now I realize I was at the weight I was because that weight was what was the best for my body when I was running that much) didn’t make me happy. I then started thinking about xcountry and track. I was definitely not always the fastest on the team but that’s ok. I have 9 trophies from HS sports and 1 from college. Only 2 of those are for being the MVR. The rest of the trophies are for most improved or a team/me award. Remembering that and how great it felt to get the team/me awards made me think about what it was that actually made me happy back then. It was my friends; it was my running and giving it all that I had. It was all the great times that being on the xcountry and track teams gave me. I have sooo many memories and they are all great. Running gave me so many opportunities in life. I met amazing people on other teams and at running camps. I had great coaches two of which have turned into great friends. Running also gave me a lot of self-confidence that I did not have before I joined in 7th grade. It also proved to me that I could do anything I set my mind to and that it’s ok to step outside your comfort zone. I even got to go to a division 2 school and run on the xcountry team there. Basically what this brought me back to is knowing what I want my goals to be for right now instead of numbers. Now don’t get me wrong I know I will always have down days/weeks/months whatever it may be but having these goals may help me keep focused on what’s most important in life. My running goal is to just be consistent and to give it all I have on that particular day. I am going to run for time for a while and try to not focus on pace……. Try to lol. But I am also going to just enjoy every run because as I found out with being told I can’t run marathons and most likely I can’t run half-marathons you never know when you won’t be able to run anymore and I don’t want to take it for granted. My other goal is to focus on eating healthy; I can’t even begin to think about keeping track of calories until my doctor gets back to me anyways. My third goal is to try and not put myself down so much. That will probably be the hardest goal for me as I still don’t have the greatest self-esteem and self-worth right now. But for now I am going to keep a journal and try and right down one thing I did positive every day or one thing I felt good about myself that day. We will see how this all goes. At the very least I know I will have my friends to keep me grounded and be there for me when I am really struggling with it.