Secret of success

The gaps between my posts seem to be growing.

This morning during my 2-miler I was thinking about why my experiment of running a mile each day, initially for a month, has been so successful, when this wasn't the first time I'd tried to see if I could run every day.

Here are the main reasons I think that it has worked for me this time:

1. By calling it an experiment, it has lessened the potential negative impact of failing. An experiment, by its very nature, has an associated link to the phrase "trial and error", which I love. How much more empowering it is to make an error and then try something a little different as opposed to failing, and possibly labeling yourself a failure.

2. By setting the challenge at something I knew I could achieve and yet was also quite a stretch. I knew that I could run a mile once, even though I had a groin strain when I started, I could hobble round, however slowly. I also knew that I could run it again on another day. I didn't know that I could definitely do it every day for a month.

3. The challenge was easily scalable. I went from "I've done my month" to "let's see how long I can keep it going?" Still very much an experiment with no pressure.

4. I didn't announce it to the world initially, thereby increasing the (self-inflicted) pressure of expectation, but I did tell several people close to me, so there was also some accountability. It felt like I could fall over (metaphorically, as well as literally) but not extremely hard and flat on my face.

5. The longer the experiment has continued, the more I have faced different challenges to keeping it going, and have overcome them, but as with the run it has been one small step along the path at a time. I have also combined the increasing confidence with increasing my sharing of what I'm doing. It's now on Facebook and my web site, and the Facebook page also comes up on the first page of a Google search, if you type in "a mile each day".

There's got to be lessons from this experiment that I can use in other areas of my life. After all, running is such a great metaphor for life!