I’m a runner. I’m not fast, but like Forrest Gump, I will keep running, so in school I found my way to cross-country and track. As a grown-up juggling jobs and five kids, running became an important anxiety-management tool.
The downside of being a busy person who runs? You run when you shouldn’t. Like when you want to get to dinner with friends, and you run across an icy street. And that’s how I broke my right ankle three years ago. I was sidelined for six months of surgery, casts, a boot, scooter, walker, and countless hours of physical therapy before I took my first hobbly, wobbly steps. Eventually, I was back running 5Ks, 10Ks, and half marathons.
In the before times, I’d always wanted to try a marathon, but with the aforementioned job juggling and kids, I never found the time. Now back, but with an uncertain gait, I heard myself saying to others — and myself — that the window for me running a marathon had closed.
And I didn’t like hearing it.
Self Talk vs. Self Sabotage
We all have a window we’ve decided has closed. A career change we aged out of. A creative pursuit we set aside. A goal we keep putting off until the conditions are picture perfect. The question worth asking is whether that’s actually true — or just the story we’re telling ourselves.
Back in January, I wrote about the power of self-talk — citing Ethan Kross’s research on how talking to yourself in the second or third person can bypass your inner critic and sharpen performance in the moment. But there’s a deeper layer. It’s not just how you talk to yourself — it’s the bigger story you carry about what you’re actually capable of. Psychologist Carol Dweck found that people operate from one of two mindsets: fixed, believing abilities and potential are set in stone, or growth, believing they can be developed. The stories we tell ourselves about our limits are often just that — stories.
“I’ve missed my window” is a fixed-mindset story. I didn’t like it — so I decided to change it to a growth-mindset story. Back in March, I circled October 4th on my calendar and started training for the Twin Cities Marathon. I ran faster and further than ever, eating all of the protein and even losing the requisite toenail along the way. Everything was going according to plan. Until it wasn’t.
Ten days from the race, I started struggling with right leg pain — the leg with the broken ankle. Not wanting to break it again with a stress fracture, I went to the doctor, got an X-ray, and even visited an orthopedic clinic for an MRI. I was on pins and needles waiting to see if my marathon window was closing again. Finally, I got my answer: I was clear to run.
Relentless Forward Motion
The unexpected gift I got from the last-minute leg-injury limbo was a lifting of my own expectation stories that had developed over months of training. I wasn’t focused on pace or an estimated race time. I just wanted to finish the marathon. And two weeks ago, that’s exactly what I did.
I’m not gonna lie. Race day was hard. The muscular pain in my right leg nagged me the entire race, especially in the hilly final miles. But with a growth-mindset story in place, I could enjoy another gift: marathon day itself. The weather was perfect, there was great music (including bagpipes!), snacks (Anderson’s Pure Maple Syrup came in clutch), costumes (I got a high five from ALF!), and several fun signs (“Therapy was also an option” and “You’re running better than the government.”). But one of my favorites was simply: “Relentless forward motion.”
In spite of the long odds or challenges, you press forward, framed by the thought, “You know what, maybe I can.” The stories we tell ourselves are powerful. Keep yours moving forward.
(Side note: the real heroes on a marathon route are the people who come out in droves with motivational and humorous signs, cowbells, instruments, and snacks).
Story Strategy: Rewrite Your Story
The stories we tell ourselves are powerful. Make it a good one.
Apply it:Identify a window you’ve decided has closed. Ask yourself honestly whether that’s true — or just a fixed mindset story you’ve been telling yourself. Then rewrite it as a growth mindset story and take one concrete step toward it. Circle a date. Sign up. Start.
A version of this first appeared in Story Strategies—my monthly email newsletter designed to help you connect with your audience through the power of story. Get the next issue delivered to your inbox.
