Self Doubt
“Strength is how you shut down the voice in your head that says “I can’t”
On Friday I’m travelling to Devon for a 4 day “Writing & Running Retreat”, those who I’ve already told have said how perfect the weekend will be for me, doing the two things that I love the most.
It doesn’t feel perfect right now, it feels scary and petrifying and I am full of my own self-doubt. I’m an impulsive person and I’ve entered races, events, signed up to courses, conferences and weekends away and sometimes I’ve just talked myself out of attending them. But I don’t want to talk myself out of this weekend, I really want to go so I’m writing this to give myself some accountability, to let you all know that, just like running, the hardest part of anything is sometimes just getting out of the front door and turning up.
I’ve always loved creative writing, this weekend’s retreat is not unfamiliar to me, my secondary school curriculum included a week’s residential writing retreat in a 18th Century mill owner’s house which once belonged to Ted Hughes – a peaceful place in Yorkshire that “created the perfect environment for imagination to thrive and for language and writing skills to improve”. I attended this retreat two years in a row I enjoyed it so much, these retreats fanned the flames of my dreams of being a journalist and writer.
However, occasionally life doesn’t quite work out the way you planned, and my career took on several different turns and now, 37 years from my first creative writing retreat, I find myself preparing for a similar experience where my imagination can thrive and my creative juices can flow, but instead of packing away my tobacco and cigarette papers of yesteryears, I’m packing all my off-road running gear.
In spite of preparing myself for a great adventure of running and writing, unfortunately my imagination is well and truly thriving as I also pack 37 years’ worth of stacked up self-doubt and anxiety about my ability to write anything that is worthy of anybody reading yet alone reading out loud in front of a group of strangers.
In my head everyone else on the retreat will be better than me, more eloquent, more confident, more educated, published, experienced……. this list goes on. I’ve convinced myself that I don’t need to go, that my life is lovely just the way it is, why purposely put myself out of my comfort zone, the lost money doesn’t matter and oh I’m feeling a bit tired!
Does any of this sound familiar? As runners we face many challenges and one of the hardest challenges is to just keep going. Sometimes we run for a few weeks or months, then life crops up which means we can’t make it for one session…which then turns into 2 sessions then 3, then a month and so on.
I’m sharing my story because I’ve left it nearly 40 years to get back into the saddle of taking my writing that little bit more seriously, I’m not claiming I’m going to be the next Margaret Atwood but just like learning how to run, sometimes we need a little bit of expert advice, guidance, and support to help us in our journey. I’m going on Friday, I’ve asked myself what is the worst that can happen, I’m going to bite the bullet and give it a go, if not now, when?