The alarm went off and I sighed. Literally. I sighed upon waking. It had been a late night at work, a full day was on tap, and it was to begin with 600-meter repeats on the treadmill. My legs were tired. My butt was sore. (From what I have no idea, but it was sore.) And I was unsure how this speed workout would play out. My goal, I decided upon arriving at the gym, was to not fall off the treadmill.

But while envisioning myself staying upright on the treadmill, I recalled two lines from a website I recently visited:

I will call you out on playing small.

Because life is too short to not kick ass.

Somehow I stumbled upon the Andrea Owen’s website. She’s a life coach and with a few clicks around her site and blog, I found I freaking love her. Her post on 25 acts of self love is worth a few minutes of your time if not printing it out and posting so you can read it daily. I wasn’t exactly thinking self love on the treadmill this morning, but I was thinking about playing small and kicking ass. Playing small meant giving too much power to my inner critic. It meant being afraid to be messy and imperfect in front of others. It meant being ashamed of past mistakes and holding myself back.

That wasn’t going to happen on this interval workout. I was going to play big, I was going kick ass. I was going to stay on the treadmill. Oh, it was messy and imperfect. It had been two weeks since I did a speed workout with a solid five days of illness tucked away in there. I had to accept where my body was at. And that meant struggling a bit through a moderate paced interval workout. It was hard. The Gremlins wanted to come out and question why on earth I would think I was strong and fearless. Oh, you Gremlins. We don’t have time to play today.

The workout was hard. It felt long. But here’s the thing: I stayed on the treadmill. It was OK if I was struggling because the struggle would make me stronger. I was playing big. I was kicking ass. And I wasn’t going to fall off. Not this time.