If there’s one message that I could get across to athletes at every level, it’s simply the idea of “You are enough.” It’s a beautiful message because it applies to you no matter how many awards you’ve received, your age, your goals—really anything.
If you are a person that has experienced a fairly trial-less life, maybe you consider yourself lucky or a natural, it may feel like you are your accomplishments. On the other hand, maybe you feel like your life is going from one trial to another, none of which seem to make life any better, but you aren’t your failures either.
Most all of us are somewhere in the middle. We’ve had our share of positive experiences and setbacks. Learning how to use the failures to our advantage takes practice, and so does realizing that we are more than our greatest accomplishments. It takes a mature person to understand their self-worth, something that young runner Grayson Murphy has done early in her career.
Grayson Murphy
Grayson grew playing many sports, but navigated toward soccer as she grew older. She had the opportunity to play on a college team her freshman year. When she switched schools the following year, she decided not to play soccer but still wanted to join a team. She knew that she loved being a part of a team and decided that running wasn’t too far of a stretch from playing soccer.
Turns out she was right. For the next three years it was an anomaly when Grayson didn’t PR not only in an event, but in all her training sessions. She transferred schools once again to take advantage of her new found skills and received a scholarship at the University of Utah. She finished her degree in civil engineering as a 5x All-American and signed with NAZ Elite.
Believe in Your Personal Journey
To this point, Grayson was enjoying everything that came with her running career. She loved the comradery of her team, being in the running community, and the act of running itself. It was after she started training with the NAZ Elite in Flagstaff, Arizona when things starting feeling different for her.
“I told everyone I felt like a puzzle piece, that was almost the right piece,” says Grayson, “I needed community and I needed family. Flagstaff felt like an extended training camp. It wasn’t a home.”
After one year of training as a professional runner in Flagstaff, Grayson decided to call it quits and head back home to Salt Lake City. “I decided I wanted to build my life how I wanted it to be from the ground up,” she says.
Of course, this was not an easy task. She was anxious about how people would look at her. From an outside perspective, it looked like she was giving up a wonderful opportunity, doing something she enjoyed and was good at. Not only that, but she would be losing out on her sponsorships, heading home to no job or income.
Grayson showed incredible maturity in this decision. She chose to do what she knew was best for her. During this time, she continued to run and realized that it was being out in nature that made her happy. She picked up trail running and three months later, won the Mountain Running Championship.
Six months after being home she signed with Saucony. She believed she could be a good rep for any running sponsor; she just needed to keep believing that and the time would come. Now she looks back at these six trying months, and considers them a funny story. The relatively short stressful time, made it all worth it.
Follow Your Heart
“Success is never final; failure is never fatal.” This quote belongs to NCAA basketball coach legend, John Wooden. He understood that showing up every day, after every win or loss, had more to do with the person performing the acts than the failures and the successes themselves.
Remember, you are enough. You are more than what things you do or what things happen to you. Follow the path that is true to you, not necessarily the one that will give you the most accomplishments or please the most people. In Grayson’s words, “If you follow your heart, you will end up with the days you have day dreamed about.”
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Hey friends, I know it has been a tough year, so much we can not control so much going on and we can’t see the end in sight. If you are someone who is needing a guide into the job world, if you have a fear of losing your job, lost your job, or don’t know where to start in finding a job, I have created a job guide for runners. Giving away a lot of advice, 20 pages worth, along with a bonus episode on the podcast which you can listen to here. I also have incredible advice for small businesses, if you want to check those guides out click below.
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