Step 1: Simplify my life

There are times when life is going so well that everything is easy.  You have a great job, great boyfriend, great hobbies, and in general, feel like a fairy princess.  At least I did for three years.  Then the rug gets pulled under you, and you go into survival mode until the depression clears.  You wake up, decide to do something insane like run six major marathons in ten years, and realize “but how can I possibly do this why my life is such a mess?”

I spent most of 2012 in shutdown mode, 2013 in avoidance mode, and 2014 in getting by mode.    I now need to thrive.

In order to achieve my goal, I need to remove the excuses not to train.  “My to do list is too long today.”  “I don’t have clean running clothes.”  “There’s too much work on my plate.”  “I have to get this done today.”  If I’m more organized, more efficient, these excuses disappear.  So the first step is to simplify my life, make it functional and do-able and achievable so that running can be made a priority.  Unless you’re immensely talented (I’m not), Boston qualifying times don’t happen automatically, and I need the time to do the training required to gain speed.

Today is a great example.  I need to run five miles today as part of my training plan, but all of my winter running jackets and sweatshirts are in the dirty laundry.  Before I even consider going for a run, I have to do a load of running clothes, but what is in the washer?  Dirty blankets.  So before I can wash running clothes, I have to wash blankets, and of course the dryer still has clean clothes (socks, mostly) that need to be put away before I can put a load of clothes in the dryer. 

But the clutter is virtual as well.  It’s also easy to download an app to learn German (for the Berlin marathon), another thing entirely to clean out an bloated email inbox so you don’t miss that important email about the lottery or the charity teams or the travel agency the London marathon is using.  With the majors, it’s very much a “if you snooze, you lose.”  Success and failure will be determined by how organized I am, just as much as how good a runner I am.

So the first step towards the #6in10 is “Simplify my life.”  Make my life functional so I’m not running around a day late and a dollar short, a life where I have the time and energy to get everything that needs to get done so I have the time and energy for the things I want to do. 

In the movie version, here is where you would cut into a montage of cleaning and sorting and working and a supportive romantic interest, providing a perfectly organized life in 2.5 minutes.  Real life isn’t so pretty.  Real life is about baby steps instead of giant leaps, setbacks instead of forward motion, distractions instead of Olympic-caliber focus, and the unexpected getting in the way of plans.  All while you feel like a failure for being unable to achieve instant gratification. 

While there are thousands of books and blogs and planners and organizers that can go through every step of getting your life in better order, they only look at your outside world.  It doesn’t change the static inside my head that gets in the way of my goals.  Quests are life-changing, so I know I need to look deeper, look at how my philosophy on the way I live my life has to change: 

1.  Find balance.  Having a more functional home life will ease my stress at work.  Running soothes my emotional and mental health as well as being good for my physical health.  Realize that trying to be everything to everyone will only run myself down to a point where I will be too exhausted to be useful to anyone.
2.  Prioritize.  Make one day a week about me and my quest—no job, no avoidance, no distractions.  Going for a daily run has to become a habit instead of allowing work or life to distract me into excuses. 
3.  Focus on baby steps.   Consider the question, “What needs to be accomplished in order for me to get my training in today?” and work backwards to find the first step.  Find ways to reward myself for completing intermediate steps. 
4.  Recognize and avoid distractions.  Practice awareness, noticing what causes me to stray from my forward intertia, and work to prevent those situations in the future.  Realize that distractions are unavoidable, so I must learn how to cope with them.
5. Accept what is.  Stop wasting energy being upset about the past.  Find the aspects in life that are going well and celebrate them.
6. Understand that it will all work out in the end.   Trust in God that the inevitable mistakes and missteps in life aren’t mistakes after all.  See the blessing in being imperfect.

This blog has to embody these philosophies.  It is a priority, as well as a way to reflect on the balance in my life.  It’s written one week at a time, and best created all week, with me walking away and coming back to it as I’m inspired doing other things.  While there will be good posts and just awful posts, the end work will be perfect.

I may not get that run in today; the warm winter running clothes still aren’t clean.  But perhaps had I run, I would have slipped on the ice and gotten injured, so I will be okay with today and grateful I get to do indoor training tomorrow.