Awareness is the key

Last night I took part in the first of this year's Tunbridge Wells Harriers 4-part summer 10K handicap races.

I set out with the thought that I wouldn’t push myself because I hadn’t run that distance in a race-type environment for a year.

Once I got going, my mind came back to thinking of my arm movements, something that I’d had some coaching on recently with the fabulous Sarah’s Runners.

After my experience of the weekend, I took the pressure off myself and rather than concentrate on trying to do it, I just checked in on a regular basis on what I felt my arms were doing.

It’s a great trick to just make yourself become aware of how you’re doing something or how you’re being and leave it there. Don’t try to change what you’re doing to do it right.

You’ll find that just becoming aware becomes a catalyst in itself for creating the changes you want to make, as long as you stop the trying to change.

This works time and again when I’m coaching people, whether it’s to keep track of how often they say yes to requests when they’re feeling overwhelmed by taking on others' problems, or when I set them the task of logging how many times they asked someone else what to do and it ended up that the advice is what they would have done anyway.

Just by setting people tasks to observe but not change anything (therefore not adding any pressure), nine times out of ten they come back having already started saying no to people or acting on their own decisions without waiting for validation from others.

Oh, and my run last night? I ran the fastest 10K I’d run in the last five years.

So my question for you is, "What is it you’re trying to change right now in your running or elsewhere in your life?"

Find a way to measure or track what it is you’re doing now.

Let me know if the act of tracking where you’re at now automatically brings about change without you having to try.

It’s certainly more fun!