What I learnt from running…..

For the longest time I was obsessed with body image, as a teenager I was always looking through  magazines, in search of the latest beauty fads. The particular area of obsession often changed, but by far the longest lasting was my obsession with weight, looking back I  realise that that was an absolute waste of time because I was such a skinny little thing.  After years of unnecessary stressing, the universe finally awarded me some weight to  work on. Even though i was not  overweight, I had picked up at least 10  kilos, that was more than enough to set me into a state of panic. After a couple of failed diets, with much reluctance I  started running.  What started out as a desperate attempt  to lose weight eventually  turned out to be one of the best  decisions I ever made, I not only managed to drop a few kilos, but also learnt some important lessons that I now apply to my everyday living.

If your mind can conceive it and you believe it, you can achieve it – Napoleon Hill

This has quickly become my favorite quote, I have heard it a lot over the years, but only now have I come to really understand and appreciate it. Yes I wanted to lose weight, but I didnt think that I could.  I always thought there were people out there that had God had made strong,  I believed these ‘special  people’ were more physically gifted than I was.  Little did I know that the only difference between them and me, was their belief in themselves and their abilities. For a few months I went around complaining, complaining about how my asthma stopped me from running,  about how expensive healthy eating was, about how I just didnt have enough time to prepare my meals in the morning, about how I couldnt afford a trainer,  basically I was always complaining. Its only when I  started to believe that I could lose weight did I switch complaints for action, I googled running for asthamatics, I substituted recommended food with cheaper alternatives, I planned my meals in advance and when I couldnt afford to pay my gym subscription, I ran. All of these solutions were always within my reach, but guess what,  I had to believe it, plan for it, action it  and then achieve it. This applies to everything else in life, once an idea has been conceived, believe in it, plan the steps to get there and act, only then can you achieve.

There will be setbacks, setbacks are not failure.

Just because you believe it, doesnt mean it will be easy. Some days will be beautiful, some days will be absolute hell, its all part of the process.  Setbacks will happen, and when they do, look for the lesson, pick yourself up and keep moving. I got injured, 2 weeks before what would have been my first half marathon race.  I spent the next couple of weeks judging myself for failing and convinced that everyone  was judging me too. Eventually, feeling sorry for myself became exhausting,  this happened the minute I realised that there would be other races. Not taking part in that particular race did not make me a failure, what would have made me a failure is not attempting to run another race. Its important to not dwell too long in the disappointment of a setback, there is always a reason and a lesson to be learnt ( in this case I learnt that if you are going to run long distances, form is everything). Setbacks are sometimes  Gods way of redirecting our path , his way of telling us to change course , his way of pushing us out of our comfort zone, or simply telling us NOT YET.

There are no shortcuts to success.

I tried slimming teas and fad diets, sometimes I lost a few kilos ( most times the scale hardly moved) but within a few days they came right back. If you are going to achieve anything meaningful, you need to consistently  put in the work, even if your current conditions dont make it easy. 

Enjoy the journey and appreciate where you are.

Nothing frustrates effort more than staying fixated on the destination. Its hard to see how far you have come and how well you have done if you keep your eyes on the finish line. On any journey, its not unusual to have bad days, its normal to sometimes question yourself and where you are going. On those days, dont focus on the end, get your encouragement from how far you have come since the start line, what progress you have made, what you have learnt. Do not dwell on how much more you have left to do, try as much as possible to enjoy whats left of the journey. Runners have a terrible habit of asking the questions  ‘what was your time’ or ‘what was your pace’ both well meaning questions but sometimes encourage unnecessary competition. These questions act much like social media, encouraging competition based on incomplete information.  Never compare your progress to anybody other than the person you were yesterday, because the only journey you will ever truly know (or own)  is your own. Let other peoples success inspire you, but never use it as a yardstick for your own progress, you dont know what their struggles have been, what kick start they got or  how long it has taken them.

The world has some amazing people,

If only you will allow yourself to see the good in others. I have met so many people on my runs. I have had great conversations with people whose names I dont even know. There have also been some actual friendships that have come out of running, I have made friends with people  older and  younger than myself, with people and from different backgrounds, whose view of life is so different from mine. All of this adds to the wonderful experience of running.  Through running i have learnt the importance of encouraging one another. It could be through a pep talk from a seasoned runner, or even a runners nod.  A  runners nod, a simple gesture that at times is barely noticeable, is a silent reassurance that says  ‘I see you’ ‘well done, keep pushing’  on a bad day,trust me that nod is everything! It will keep you going.

Writing on purpose

The last couple of weeks, I have been filled with an urge to write, what about? I really have no idea, all I know is that I have  wanted to write! So here goes, this is me writing! The question I have asked myself over and over (and which you are probably asking too) is why writing? I mean I could quite frankly do a million other (relevant)  things,  learn a foreign language, join an association, start a boot business, visit an orphanage, the list is endless. But here I am writing, seemingly about nothing. And why now? Apart from academic essays and the occasional work report (most of my reporting is numerical ), I have not put pen to paper in years, that’s  funny though, because growing up, amongst many of my career aspirations was writing, it  stood right there at the top, somewhere alongside psychologist, TV presenter, human rights activist and whatever else interested me at the time ( the list is endless, I was a big dreamer) . As a child, I  wrote countless short stories, which  had one end reader, my Father. As to whether or not  I was ( or am) a good writer, I will let you be the judge of that, my daddy said I was brilliant, but then again it was in  his best interest to keep me occupied while he got some actual work done, lol.

To be perfectly honest, I started this with absolutely no idea  what to talk about, and I probably would never have started had I not gotten a push from my friend Chipo, see lately we have been having these conversations, centred around  purpose and passion and it was during  one of these conversations that I mentioned to her that I wanted to write, to which she responded ‘so why don’t you. I turn 30 in less than a year, and I suppose these conversations on purpose are as a result of growing pains, when you have been around close to 3 decades and have absolutely no idea what it is that you are called for,   you start to question things, why am I here? What has God placed in me that he left out in everybody else? If I died today, what would I take with me?

Of late it’s as though at  almost every turn, I am faced with the question of purpose,  whether I want to or not, I am forced to think about it. Nearly everyday I come across a book, a sermon an article and even conversations on purpose. But what is purpose? When we speak of purpose, it’s important to make a distinction between purpose and destiny, because even though the two are often spoken of together, they are not the same thing. Dr Cindy Trimm makes a ‘neat’ diffrenciation  between the 2  ‘ purpose is what you were meant to do, destiny is where you are going’ . More simply put destiny is your ‘where’,   purpose is your ‘why’. 

So  here I am, nearing 30, looking for my ‘why’.  Again I refer to Dr Trimm, in her audio ‘living on purpose’ she challenges her listeners to think about what they would spend their time doing if money was not an issue. That would seem like an easy question, right? But honestly how many of us can confidently give an answer? For many of us, that little voice that guides us towards purpose has been silenced, silenced by life’s experiences, we have gotten so caught up in the pain of the past, our need for social acceptance and making money. But purpose, is none of that, purpose is what God put into us, right at the beginning  of it all.

I tried  to answer Dr Trimms question by going back to my childhood, who was I before life happened. What were the unadulterated dreams of my childhood? What kept my little mind busy? As I said earlier I was a big dreamer,  I probably spent more time daydreaming than the average child ( I still do, my defense is that I am Pisces)  I get the feeling that  my purpose was ( and probably still is) tied into some of those dreams. How then do I move away from what i have conditioned to be and walk into purpose? Go  back to the dreams of my childhood, back to the things that made me happy, and hence I find myself writing. There are so many things that enjoyed, but at this point, writing seems like the easiest and most natural to do.  This is not to say I am called to be a writer, I may or may not be, but from writing I got a sense of accomplishment, it helped me explore a world beyond my bedroom walls, a world where I had control. All of these are  feelings i have seldom experienced in my adult years.  I don’t know how far I’ll go with this writing thing, or how often I’ll write, or what will come out of it, what i do hope for though, is that somewhere between these words i’ll find my ‘WHY’