When I sit down and think about how I am going to push myself to the next level, I often think about the next great thing that I am going to do. I am going run a marathon, then I am going to set a new target. Something cool and impossible. However, I am keenly aware now that it is not the big audacious goal that drives my success. What really starts to improve things for me is the lower limit of my daily achievement. What is a rock bottom day for me? You see we are all going to have down days, and probably frequently.
You will have days when even your emotional support dog is depressed. The question is not how to avoid those days. I think that is impossible. The question is how low will you go on those days? The question is can you raise the bar? Raise the minimum floor?
When you completely crash, what will you crash to? There was a time when crashing to me meant literally staying in bed all day and doing nothing. I think that was pretty low. I guess I could have resorted to using illegal substances to help me “get through it”, that might have been lower! However, now my low is much different. Even on bad tough days, I still plan my day prayerfully each morning (even if the day sucks), I review the day each night (even if the day still sucked). I record my thoughts in a journal and on this blog everyday, regardless of how bad it is. I run and/or do some physical conditioning regardless of how miserable I feel. I work on some basic things that are important to me, I will not go through that list, but the important point is that I am getting to my list of priorities despite my low.
Now I still feel like crap, and I really do not want to do anything. However, I do it because it is now the new normal. It is like waking up and eating breakfast, except now I wake up and eat breakfast and several other things. Not complicated, simple. The habit forming process of keeping commitments helps you accomplish more then you normally would everyday – even the bad ones.
Interesting is that some of these new habits accelerate the process of improving my temperament. I might get down in the dumps for a few days, lick my wounds and then come roaring back in a week or two or three. Now it is like a day, or even less. The reason is because when you go out and run anyway, or you do 100 pushups anyway, or you plan your miserable excuse for a life anyway, things start to just feel better when you are done. By the time I am done with four of five of my commitments then I do not feel so bad anymore, I feel more in control. That problem looming over my head, seems so small now.
Keeping commitments and habit forming is about reducing the number of days that you back pedal – eventually getting to the point where you are always going forward and never backward. No more destructive days, only days that are small progress versus significant progress.
Guy Reams
10 Days until 1st Marathon
