My friend Sam dropped me a quick note on Facebook this morning: “How did it go?”

I read the question via email without logging into Facebook. Immediately I assumed that the “it” she was referring to was my run last night, which, quite frankly, was pretty pathetic. Four miles total, but at least a mile of that was walking. Damn plantar fasciitis! It was so pathetic that I whined last night to D.J. that perhaps I wasn’t assistant coach material for my upcoming marathon season, where I’m supposed to help 40-60 people get to the finish line in a marathon or half marathon. Perhaps I should drop out because I was completely out of shape and plagued by nagging injuries. Oh, poor me.

But the ever level-headed D.J. kinda scoffed at my self pity. “Babe,” he said, “today you had a fabulous presentation where everybody loved you, and now you’re all down about your running instead of thinking about the great career win you had today. Come on!”

Deej had a great point. I completely rocked a speaking gig yesterday. In fact, the speaker who was scheduled after me delayed her presentation because she ran over to hand me her card and ask me if I could come to speak to her group. It was a win all around. And the run last night was not as bad as I was making it out to be either. I was out there, after all, making the effort to work through a rough patch. And I have several weeks before the coaching season begins — plenty of time to get back to regular running form.

Yet this morning my first thought with Sam’s email was about yesterday’s down moment, not my high. The two events yesterday were completely independent of one another, yet my focus was on the mediocre run.

I think learning how to focus on the positive takes conscious practice. I think I have to learn to recognize that I’m giving energy to the negative and forgetting the positive. And I’m going to put some effort toward that to see how much more positive each day can be.

Your turn… what do you dwell on when you have a good/bad day? When you receive feedback about something from ten people, and nine of them love it and one person hates it, do you spend your energy celebrating the nine or obsessing over the one?

PS… To write this blog post I logged into Facebook to get Sam’s actual words. Turns out she was asking a mutual friend how her eyelash-dying appointment went. It wasn’t about me after all….