Finding the Encouragement You Need
At the gym, I was pushing myself hard, using heavier weights than I normally did. My efforts weren’t pretty, but I was doing it!
Until the coach came along and told me to use less weight.
I was crushed. I’d decided to challenge myself, and instead of support, I got the message: You can’t do this.
If he’d been concerned about me hurting myself, perhaps I could understand, but his reasons made it worse: “We can’t wait on you to finish”. (Note: we waited on other people to finish when they pushed themselves.)
I thought about quitting right then and there. There are a million gyms; I could find another place to work out.
But I decided to go back one more time. And that time, when I tried the heavier weight (because yeah, I was still gonna try!), I heard a cheer of encouragement from another person in the class. This meant more to me because she didn’t need to do that. It wasn’t her job. Still, she took a few seconds out of her own workout to offer me the encouragement I needed.
When we write, we might run into people like the coach, who, inadvertently or not, discourage us. But it’s no reason to give up because, as I found out, there are plenty of other people out there cheering for you. And if you can’t easily find one around you? Email me. I’ll be that person for you. It’s my favourite part of my job.