60 Miles on Foot: How Self-Sabotage and Self-Talk Shape Our Performance
Somewhere around mile 48 of the Susan G. Komen 60-mile walk in Boston, my body started loudly protesting and I learned a massive lesson about how negative self-talk and self-sabotage dictate our physical limits.
For the first two days, every time I passed a cheering station or volunteer crossing guard decked out in pink and huge smiles, I was met with a simple question:
"How are you doing?" My enthusiastic response? "Fantastic!" or "Wonderful!"
And every single time I said it out loud, my feet literally stopped throbbing and it felt like I was floating on air even if for just five minutes.
Then the pure, unadulterated pain set in (I had a sprained achilles tendon and posterior tibial tendon), and my vocabulary took a severe 180.
Instead of declaring myself fantastic, I started muttering, "I’m okay. I’m making it out."
My body caught that cue instantly. The momentum completely evaporated. The heavy, burning weight in my feet returned with a vengeance, and every single step felt like dragging concrete out of mud.
My feet responded directly to the energy I put into the air.
Your Internal Dialogue Is Giving Direct Orders
Your words are not just passive observations of your stress. They are direct, operational instructions to your brain, your performance, and your nervous system.
Scripture reminds us that death and life are in the power of the tongue. And, this journey reinforced this for me.
If you tell yourself a project is a nightmare, your brain will happily hunt down every single piece of evidence to prove you right. If you speak fatigue, doubt, or survival mode into your workday, your execution will drop down to match that exact frequency.
Rewriting the Script When You Are Running on Empty
Looking back on those 60 miles across Boston, the takeaway was not about putting on some fake positivity. It was a reminder that words are extremely powerful.
Audit your default answers: Pay attention to what spills out of your mouth when a colleague asks how your week is going. Are you automatically defaulting to "swamped," "drowning," or "surviving"?
Stop naming the defeat before you finish: Acknowledge that the mountain is steep, but stop giving your mind permission to quit before you hit the summit.
Speak over your circumstances: Give your energy something powerful to align with, especially when you feel like you are dragging your feet through mile 48.
Your words carry actual power. Speak positively over your life, your career, and your next big hurdle, because everything else will follow.
How do you reset your internal dialogue when a major goal starts taking a heavy physical or mental toll?
Drop your thoughts in the comments below, I would love to hear your strategy.
If you want to read more about my journey, follow-along here.
Temeka Easter Rice is a storyteller, social media leader, and board strategist who builds strong teams, scales impactful programs, and creates rooms where people win. From keynote stages to executive board retreats, she delivers actionable frameworks on communications, board governance, and financial bounce-backs, all packed with practical skill sets and a spark of joy.
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