I really like this article. I don’t post a lot of serious stuff, or psycho babble, inspiring quotes and other such guff, but sometimes I read something which explains a part of me in a way I’d never thought of before.
The section which leapt out at me was “that the mental framing of stressful events can powerfully influence the ways we are affected by them. People who see stressful events as “challenges”, with an opportunity to learn and adapt, tend to cope much better than those who focus more on the threatening aspects – like the possibility of failure, embarrassment or illness. These differences in mindset not only influence people’s mood, but also their physiological responses, such as changes in blood pressure and heart rate, and how quickly they recover after the event.”
So, maybe this is why I see everything as a challenge? I do love a challenge, and after my hideously traumatic years I did consciously decide that I was going to set myself challenges, getting excited at the prospect of overcoming them and trying to learn from them. I had come out the other side of the most challenging time in my life and I suppose I’d learnt that I could cope much better than I would ever have thought. It’s satisfying, empowering, fricking AWESOME realising you’ve wupped the ass off something shitty that’s happened to you.
It’s how I am looking at this winter, too. I’ve got my bikini challenge coming up, which will be extra hard as I have to do it on my own, without any physical support in the form of fellow swimmers, so it will all be down to me. But I see life as a challenge which won’t beat me.
Thought I’d share this anyway. Don’t be scared of challenges. Don’t be scared of failure. Just give it an old fashioned bash and see where it gets you.
In other news, my poster is now up in my local Sainsbury’s. Now THAT feels weird seeing my gurning face during my skydive every time I buy a pint of milk 🤣🙅🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️