How to Change ‘I Can’t’ to ‘I Will’ and ‘I Did’

Originally Published in: Fastpitch Delivery

Provided by: NFCA

The sky was dark and the storm clouds started to roll in. I wondered if I would be caught in a nasty attack from the skies before I could make it back. I wasn't really prepared fully. It was getting cold and I was tired. I had ventured down the trail almost 4.5 miles, which meant I had to turn around and head back the same distance just to make it home.

The leaves began to churn around me. I turned my music up louder. My feet pounded the pavement just a little faster. This wouldn't be the first time. I once got caught in a random freezing rain storm. A snow squall. A downpour. Wind. So much wind.

Truly, it was amazing how many weather events I would encounter for someone who didn't really run. I wasn't a runner.

There, I said it. I wasn't. Something inside won't let me say that anymore though. And it was in the moment I realized that, that I became one.

Living the life of "I can't" is so easy. The words roll off our tongues like a mouthful of water when we open our lips to spit it out. There is no effort in saying, "I can't." None.

Yet there are moments when the efforts to keep us in that place are actually harder than the ones that invite us to grow beyond it. We want to grow beyond it in those quick glimmers of "maybe," but then we sit right back down and remind ourselves that the words we said were the truth.

I can't. So don't even try.

Or maybe it starts with "I won't." Maybe that is the real word. Won't captures an essence of will. We want to or we don't. We are adamant about the stories we tell ourselves about why and we even elaborate and make it believable to ourselves. And we know better.

Or do we?

I won't. I can't. I possibly could. We move to open the door of possibility, and, in that moment, we have to live with the lies we have been telling ourselves all along.

It's not easy. It's easy. I can't. OK, I won't. Maybe?

The process to move through this isn't for the weak or the faint of heart. It takes a whole lot of love and understanding. A lot of patience with yourself. It takes the ability to be wrong, and be OK with it.

I might be able to. I probably could, but ... and our inability to commit rears its ugly head. In this moment, we look for all of the excuses and reasons why we can't. We are still holding on to our story as if it's on our birth certificate and we need to be right. We always need to be right.

Those 4.5 miles back were hard. Into the wind. The sky was changing rapidly. It was about to get ugly. I remember how I felt moving through it. I embraced the feelings of I can't.

And I argued with myself, "You don't really have an option, since your car is 4.5 miles away and you need to get back there to get home." And something clicked. No option.

OK, so my why was strong enough. I had no option. I didn't want to be stuck out on the trail for longer than I needed to be. I knew my car was 4.5 miles away. I had no option.

There was no time to make excuses or reasons or try to justify my can't. I was busy trampling those words with my feet as I dropped them in a trail behind me. They weren't going where I was going.

I hit the trail a couple weeks ago, and as I ran, I realized that I had gone three miles out. And it felt like, "Here we go again."

It was sunny, but the wind had picked up as I headed away from my car. And then I remembered - the wind. The entire way back it was like running against a wall. The resistance was unreal. I could have quit. I could have cried.

I could have reminded myself how hard it is to come back from injury. I could have owned, "I can't." And I would have been right.

But I pushed it right back. Laughing in the face of it.

I will. I did.