Venturing through life, we constantly encounter challenges, some of which seem to stretch us beyond our abilities, capacities, and limits. Daily challenges are a little easier to deal with but many goals in life may take weeks, months, years, or even a lifetime to achieve. What do we find ourselves saying at times? I can’t do this. It’s too much. It’s too steep. Not now, maybe later. And what do others tell us? Stick to it. Don’t give up. Never ever give up. The blend of persistent and consistent perseverance allows us to rise above the challenges by giving us the self-confidence to accept the challenge and achieve it.
If we are running together in a group, partner, or our dog, we have to stick together to be successful. It’s synchronicity at a basic level but it’s more than that: coordinated consistency and perpetual persistence.
How does Webster define stick-to-itiveness? Dogged perseverance and tenacity. Hold on. Don’t let go.
Many might say challenges are unrelated but the truth is that challenges are interrelated in some fashion so that incrementally, we can hop from one to another successfully. We probably won’t achieve every challenge on our first try. But if it takes 3-4 tries or more, it can be more meaningful if by failing to finish (before knowing how), we learn to finish and succeed.
How can we apply this in everyday life? Maybe we want to lose weight, walk daily, run more, and eat healthy food, give up unhealthy food/drinks. It’s a process. Pick the goals that matter most to you and give yourself a deadline. Write the goals down. Monitor your daily progress. For example, for health/fitness goals, you might choose to use MyFitnessPal to keep track of your food/water/drinks and exercise. Weight loss can be tracked in MFP also.
For runners, it is very beneficial to keep a running log. You can do it the old fashioned way on paper and/or electronically with the help of Garmin (Connect), Strava, Runkeeper, Charity Miles, Nike, etc. It’s good to have a backup system of some sort in case your GPS watch fails. For example, my Garmin failed yesterday and Strava account was incorrect too. But Runkeeper and Charity Miles were able to retrieve the mileage correctly for record-keeping purposes. Without tracking your runs, it’s tough to assess where you are with your fitness, heart rate, and long-term trends, PRs, etc. Some runners like to detach from the watch a little and that’s fine but for me, I need my VO2 max data for asthma, the recovery advisor to know how long/fast/hard to run tomorrow, and the heart rate data to assess if walk breaks are long enough.
To give you an example of multiple tries to achieve an objective, I think it took me 3 or 4 attempts to be able to Run the Year (run 20xx) miles or more corresponding to the correct year. The first year I was way short. I didn’t know how to boost my miles steadily back then. But after having a blueprint of how many miles to run each day in a box and methodically following that plan, the goal was achieved. Over and over.
To simplify it: some people are trying to run a mile or more every day in October (starting tomorrow). This is led by Ron Hill France on Facebook, Instagram, and Strava. It’s not too difficult a goal. And they have formed a solid community to help runners/athletes do this. And you don’t have to live in France. Just think of it: you could take a rest day on November 1 (or keep running if you change your mind).
We all reach points when we feel defeated. We’re throwing in the white towel metaphorically and even visualizing that in our brain. But inspired by many amazing exemplary people leading the way, I’ve found it’s helpful to ignore the towel and keep going. Setbacks propel comebacks. Maybe we just need a pep talk (either a self-talk and/or by others, sometimes a coach or friend). Here’s an example: Tell yourself this course is your home turf. It belongs to you. Seize it (figuratively). This degree of confidence will allow you to relax and achieve at a higher level with less effort. It tends to shrink the challenge a little and make it feel easier (even if it is not). Find the natural flow within you and go with it, extend it, ride the waves and surf.
Mantras help. Stick to it. We can do it. (Works better than nose to the grindstone: it’s just too negative to be effective unless it makes us laugh a little;) Don’t be a worrier. Be a warrior.
Read books and inspiring blogposts, listen to positive podcasts. Collect inspirational quotes. Read biographies of people who inspire you. Soak up positive wisdom every day.
If you’re training with a plan for a marathon or race, stick to it as much as possible. Be flexible as necessary. If you know the plan works, why change it?
Fill your mind with joyful, happy thoughts. Soak up time outside with nature. Look for beauty every day and I guarantee you will find it. Sometimes we have to look a little harder but it’s there, I promise.
Visualize the life that you want, let it flood your imagination with positive images. Then go make it happen.
Take care of yourself. Be good to yourself. And rise and fly. Patience. Stick-to-itivity. Is it a word? It is now.
As we wander into fall (hopefully without getting lost), it’s a great idea to make sure we have plenty of bright reflective clothing to wear so we can be seen easily and at a distance. One of my favorite ways to do this is to wear Brilliant Reflective safety strips. They illuminate in all weather conditions and help keep us safe. Want to learn more about Brilliant? Check out their website here: BrilliantReflective.com Showing you some samples below what they look like on the run, in light, and in darkness with the flash. If you have any questions about Brilliant Reflective, please don’t hesitate to ask. You can STICK it on or IRON it on (only the stick on variety is shown below). Either way, it has STICKtoitivity and lasts a long time.
Happy healthy trails! Farewell September! Have a wonderful week my friends!
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