"I don't feel like it ... it's too hot, it's cold ... I'm tired, I can't be bothered" ... it's so easy not to. This is how it starts ... the beginning of the end - the thin end of a wedge of tomorrows until tomorrow never comes. Your mind and body adapt quite quickly to conditions so beware the downward spiral of the less you do the less you feel like doing.
A fish rots from the head down
So much of this is in the mind ... to get things done ... use your mind as a motivator, commit and make a start and the more you do the more you feel like doing - get on an upward spiral.
“Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today.” ~ Benjamin Franklin
Lace up your trainers and go ... you can only do so much preparation and planning - make a start, adapt and adjust along the way.
The conditions for every run cannot be perfect, in fact they rarely ever are ... its the way of the world that not all the signs are aligned at the same time and you have to make do with what you have - this is what makes a life and life is what you make it.
Sometimes its best to leave the mind out of it and get into a routine so its something that you just do ... going running every Saturday afternoon for example means that you organise around the running. Be careful not to let the routine become a rut for when a pleasure becomes a habit its no longer a pleasure - just use the routine to get you started and commitment as a way to argue why not rather than why.
“Do not fear failure but rather fear not trying.”
~ Roy T. Bennett,
There have been plenty of times when I've made up my mind to run and just gone, using the commitment and the impulse as motivation and many of these runs have been the best experiences and the most memorable. Its been really cold with ice on the ground and snow falling ... I've thought ... lets give it a go - I've had to adapt and change routes along the way due to the cold but runs like this are a different experience. Its been hot, cold raining and I've not felt like it but quite often I think its better to have run than not to have run at all. You can learn a lot this way ... if you don't do it you will never know and you will never learn ... for example how to deal with the heat and better prepare for it or that rain when you are running is nowhere as bad as you might think it is .. in fact it can be quite nice :)
Give it a go, make up your mind, make a commitment so that you persuade yourself why not rather than why.
It isn't enough to pick a path - you must go down it."
~ Ed Catmull
"Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."
~ Alfred Lord Tennyson
