Don’t compare yourself to others – there will always be someone better, faster, fitter, stronger, smarter… It’s important to be content with who you are, and do the best with what you’ve got. At least, this is what I told myself as I was passed by the majority of joggers on the trail, dragging myself along to mile 4.
Appreciate the beauty of nature – it’s so easy to take nature for granted. I ran by a patch of mushrooms, and one had been broken off its stalk and flipped over so I could see its little vents. How can a fungus know how to grow into such a well organized structure? How can the cells know to line up into soft, brown vents? I don’t know… it seems pretty amazing to me that one little organism can be so delicate, complex, and completely independent. It never asked anyone for permission to be itself. Meditating on the whimsy and creativity that is abundant in the life around us can put things into perspective.
Take responsibility – no one’s going to help you get in shape. It’s up to you to take care of your body. I’m really bad at this – I don’t like to exercise alone, and I sometimes put off getting in shape unless I have a partner for accountability. It’s as if I prefer to delegate responsibility about my health to others. I know that this is a common tendency in medicine – where folks rely on their doctors, without taking responsibility for applying their advice (for diet/exercise/medications) on a daily basis.
Exercise is a life-long discipline – as I thought about how hard it was to run, and how heavy my legs felt, and how much easier all of this was just a couple of years ago… I realized that exercise is not something you do every other weekend. It really is best applied on a daily basis. And being in shape is the result of consistent hard work – so we have to focus our minds on making exercise a part of our regimen, just as we make time to eat each day!
Don’t psych yourself out – part of your success or failure in exercising has to do with whether or not you believe you can do it. When you’re running, you have to believe that you can make it the whole way… or that you can run farther than you did last time. The temptation is to quit when you start feeling a little tired, but you have to keep going – encouraging yourself along the way with a positive attitude. Of course, if you really are unable to make it (your heart rate is at its limit and you are breathing so hard you can’t speak) then slow down. But a lot of the time you’ll find that running an extra mile is a matter of mindset, not physical capability.
