Take the next step

Last night I had fun supporting the 5-mile group with Sarah's Runners, but as a result this morning my knee was sore and I felt pretty stiff.

If I hadn’t had the push of my mile-a-day habit then I would probably not have gone out this morning. I would have given myself a rest.

But if I had allowed myself the rest then I wouldn’t have had the thrill of coming across a beautiful deer standing in the middle of a residential street while I was running at 6.30 in the morning, a completely unexpected experience and a completely delightful one that gave my spirits a wonderful lift.

It just reconfirms once again the importance of daily habits that support you in continuing to explore the life you want to lead. If I hadn’t implemented the mile-a-day habit I wouldn’t have had that experience.

The other important principle that goes alongside this is the one of “take the next step”.

The great thing about a habit is all you need to focus on is doing the habit today. Tomorrow is irrelevant for now.

And in fact all you need to concentrate on is taking the next step. The one after that can follow or not. You are always at choice in the matter.

Couldn't be better

Yesterday in a short space of time, I overheard three separate interchanges that went exactly the same.

Person one asked person two "How are you?" Person two immediately responded "Not bad".

It got me wondering that whilst this is not an unusual interaction, there is an implication in each of those responses that bad is our default state. It also suggests that there are only 2 possible responses, bad or not bad.

That made me think how sad it is that so many of us see our lives through such limiting lenses, and I also realised that I answer in the same way quite often myself.

When I run, and when I let myself, I realise how lucky I am simply to be alive, even luckier to be able to run, and how I have the gift of this day to do what I want. I have complete choice over what I do with my day.

It might not appear that this is true for you, but if you think about it, there is nothing to stop you phoning work and saying that you're not coming in today or that you resign. You may not think it's an option, but believe me it is.

It's only because you choose not to have the consequences that you don't.

You absolutely have choice over all aspects of your life. You can choose to go wherever you want, do whatever you want, even choose to do absolutely nothing. You weigh up the consequences and then you choose.

So today is a gift. I have absolutely no doubt about that.

I know that because my father had none of the above choices at the age of 56 (my age), because he didn’t reach 56. Steve Jobs can no longer choose any of those things despite the billions of dollars he had.

I don’t have billions of dollars but I, like you, have the gift of today, which cannot be bought.

The questions that I think are worth asking today are: “what can I learn today?” and “what can I contribute today?”

If you can learn one thing and/or contribute one thing then it will indeed have been a very good day.

And you know what, I don’t think I would have discovered that if I didn’t run.

And if you really want to know how I am today, “I couldn't be better”.

800 days completed

So that was my 800th consecutive day of running at least a mile.

It did feel like it was something special and I certainly felt a sense of achievement.

I think this whole experiment has served to highlight the importance that daily habits have in creating our experience of life.

Some of our daily habits serve to decrease our quality of life and lessen the likelihood of us achieving our goals and our dreams.

Other habits, such as my run a mile each day, most definitely improve our quality of life and increase the likelihood of us achieving goals and dreams.

I really do believe that the most important thing about daily habits is that they are easily achievable. If I had set out to run 3 miles every day, I know for sure I wouldn't be sitting at my laptop celebrating my 800th consecutive day of completing my daily habit.

Anyway, time to spend the rest of my day bathed in the warm glow of achievement and the increased sense of positivity and possibility that gives me.

Running for my life

On this my 798th consecutive day of running a mile each day, I was thinking how important running is to me and how I'm able to use it as a metaphor for my life.

If I was ever to write a book about running, I would have to call it something like "Running for my life".

I know I talked before about how we so easily add our own meanings to other people's words, in my post The lesson of the sore hand, but it occurred to me again when thinking about a book called "Running for my life".

I would hazard a guess that probably the majority of people would think that a book with that title might be about a criminal on the run, or someone who was in great danger and had to flee, or someone who had some sort of life-threatening illness and had to exercise to stay alive.

It’s a bit like the phrase “I never said he stole the money”.

Consider that phrase when I emphasise a different word in the sentence.

“I never said he stole the money” would indicate that someone else had said it.

“I never said he stole the money” would indicate that I probably think it but haven’t yet stated it.

“I never said he stole the money” would indicate that someone else stole the money.

“I never said he stole the money” would indicate that he probably got hold of it in another way that is still underhand.

“I never said he stole the money” would indicate that he stole something else other than money.

So, back to my hypothetical book title. When I say “Running for my life”, I don’t mean “Running for my life”, I mean “Running for my life”.

Running adds quality, pleasure, depth, discipline and fun to my life, and it shows me the importance of developing habits that support me  in becoming the person I know I can be.

What is it you run for?

Measure your running happiness

I was running with Sarah's Runners yesterday when one of my running colleagues used the phrase "my running happiness".

I love this phrase and think that it's such a useful idea for measuring how well running is working for you right now.

If you imagine an internal gauge that goes from 1 to 10, where 1 represents not being at all happy with your running and 10 represents feeling that you couldn't be any happier whatever you did.

You could then use this guage when deciding whether or not to enter a race or to increase your distance. What do you imagine the score would be if you decide yes, and what would it be if you decide no?

You could also use it when you're actually running. Check in with yourself what score your running happiness is right now and then think if there's anything you could do to increase that score.

Perhaps your intuition might tell you to slow down or speed up a little, shorten the distance or even increase it, or just let go of what you should or shouldn't be doing and just become really present to how you're feeling internally and to your environment right now.

There's a great principle that I was taught in my coach training, that of "dancing in the moment".

Dancing in the moment is about letting go of what you should or shouldn't be doing, and letting your intuition guide you in what you do next.

In my experience when I'm dancing in the moment, my happiness always increases.

I think I could also adapt the running happiness to my own writing happiness and my coaching happiness.

Where in your life or your work could you benefit from designing a happiness gauge?