Marathons

Life is short, sure, but it’s actually pretty long relative to the individual moments we experience on a daily basis. I’m passionate about running, and I would argue that it teaches valuable lessons which are representative to a much broader array of pursuits we may take on in our lives.

Learning a new skill, applying for or a job, starting a relationship or a family, making a career switch, writing a book, achieving a health or fitness goal, or even starting a business — each of these endeavors would benefit from the experience of training for a marathon.

Most marathons are structured — there’s a date and location set, usually a year in advance, and participants will train for the race several months before it even begins. The plans are similar — you know what’s required, and you put in the miles — but each person is fighting their own personal battle to achieve an arbitrary goal that is meaningful because they assign meaning to it. It takes mental toughness, but doesn’t everything?

Training for one of these races teaches vital lessons: patience, discipline, and stepping back to focus on the bigger picture. In training for a marathon, you’re consciously making an effort (daily or almost every day) to make time for something that matters to you. There are days that you might feel like no one can stop you, and days where it feels like all the elements are against you. The important things are consistency and trusting the plan.

Will this require you to be adaptable? Absolutely. Life is unpredictable, and you will surely encounter struggles that throw you off course. What’s important is that you zoom out and remember to focus on the bigger picture — that is, will being thrown off my routine today affect my success or ability to achieve a goal 3 months from now? No, probably not. It’s the combination of all of those days, each of those days making that conscious effort to go out there and move one step closer to the goal, that ultimately matters in shaping the result.

It’s a remarkable thing that those months and months of preparation and dedication, all for a few hours to spend traversing 26.2 miles on the day of the race, all started with a single decision at a particular moment in time where you told yourself, “I’m going to do this.” What’s even more beautiful is that, every day in the meantime, you continued to tell yourself the same thing, and you believed it.

Life will throw you curveballs, but that’s just the beauty of it! If life were a sprint, one misstep and you’d know you failed. If Usain Bolt trips out of the blocks, he knows he’s lost the race — it’s over from the start.

Fortunately, as we hear all the time, “Life’s a marathon.” You’re going to trip and fall on your face. You’re going to have days where you feel unstoppable and days that feel like you can’t escape the storm. You’re going to be forced to adapt. Be open to change and embrace it. And remember to zoom out, and focus on the bigger picture. You can still finish the race. You will still achieve what you set out to do.

Whether you’re like me, a college student trying to find your path, a recent graduate looking to advance in your career, or an experienced professional who’s decided to start their own company — it’s important to separate what’s out of your control from what you have control over.

Remember, it all started with that single decision — a remarkably instantaneous, individual moment — to accomplish something extraordinary.

What are you going to accomplish? Rather than let it come to you, set out to chase after it, make a plan, and don’t look back. That decision is in your control, and it’s one that can be made today.