Everything is a choice

I was actually too warm on this morning's run. That hasn't happened for a while.

I'm looking forward to my first meeting with a new client and her manager today and also to helping out with pacing, or rather chaperoning, a beginners' running group this evening, so that will be two runs in one day.

Also a first for quite a while.

I started having that feeling of so much to do and not enough time this morning.

I managed to step back and remember that everything I do is a choice.

All of those things to do are things I have chosen to do.

The world won't end if I don't do them.

Somehow that thought releases the tension.

Lessons from networking

First ever run with Nicky in the dark with torches. Good for her!

Two networking meetings back to back this morning. Enjoyed them both.

The message for people who want to be successful at networking is pretty much the same as it is for anything.

Don't expect immediate results. Invest in relationships and how you might be able to help someone else, with or without financial reward. Results can show up in the most unexpected ways.

After four hours of networking I received a call from someone who found my details on yell.com. Didn't know I even advertised there?

Just get in action and be curious about what might happen.

It's about confidence

I was tired as I plodded round my 1.3 mile route at 5.40 this morning. Some days are just like that, but I did notice the difference the new batteries in my head torch made to my need to concentrate.

I was walking home from a couple of meetings just now thinking about what word, or few words, best describe what it is I do.

The word that came up for me was confidence.

When I got back to my office and reread my two latest client testimonials, the word confidence appeared in both of them.

Very interesting, I thought.

Delayed gratification

I don't know if you've seen that experiment they've done with young children, filming them being offered a sweet, and being told that if they wait ten minutes with the sweet in front of them without eating it they will be given a second sweet?

Apparently they then tracked these children, and the ones who could wait to get the double reward, resisting the immediate one, performed much better in school throughout their school career than the ones who couldn't wait.

They believe the ability to delay gratification is a measure of a child's intelligence.

I was thinking that my early morning run is a similar type of experiment.

The temptation of an extra fifteen to thirty minutes in bed most mornings is a constant temptation, especially these dark cold mornings. And yet, forcing myself to resist the temptation of the duvet to hit the pavement (day 375 today) always gives me at least double the reward that the extra time in bed would provide.

Does that make me intelligent or am I just a slightly disturbed masochist?

Resolution tips

It may be my imagination but in the past week there seem to be a lot more runners out there. It could be people training for the London Marathon in April, or it could also be people who have set New Year's resolutions to get fitter.

I suspect some of them fall into the latter category because I can overtake some of them, which doesn't happen that often these days.

I gave up making New Year's resolutions a few years ago because, like most people, my resolutions rarely lasted two weeks, let alone a month.

My new technique, which I find far more effective is writing myself a letter dated a year ahead. I then write in the present tense what I have achieved in the year that hasn't yet happened, and why that was so important, and the difference that it has made to me in what I see, what I hear and what I feel.

I then keep that letter safe somewhere and get on with my life. For me, and many of my clients, this is much more effective than resolutions.

But for anyone who does have resolutions, here's a tip from Gretchen Rubin, who's book, The Happiness Project, I'm reading right now.

She suggests creating a daily chart of your resolutions and then putting a tick or a cross in the box each day, depending whether you have lived up to your resolution or not.

Sounds like a plan to me.