Running towards your fears

I was out shortly after 5.00 a.m. running my mile this morning, as I had a potential 2-hour drive ahead of me to coach a group of teaching assistants all day on delivering 21st Century Legacy's Be the Best You Can Be! programme.

During my run I saw two cars and three animals, one real and two imaginary.

The real animal was a fox, who trotted a few yards out of my way and then just turned to watch me go by, and the two imaginary ones were a dog which turned out to be a shadow from a streetlamp, and another creature of uncertain species, which turned out to be 2 reflectors on a street name.

There's something about the dark that brings out the darker side of our imagination. Trees sprout limbs, creatures are concocted from all sorts of shadows and even wind noises, and rustling leaves bring to life people who's main aim is our demise.

So what can we do when we're feeling in a dark place and our imagination is conjuring up our own demons?

Well, I don't know about you, but what worked for me this morning was to run towards my demons and to illuminate them by shining my head torch on them.

What helps you to illuminate your demons?

3 ways to avoid disillusion

Setting overly high expectations can be dangerous, particularly if you are convinced that those expectations will be met.

This is not the same as having an inspiring vision, where you are not attached to exactly how it will come about or the timescale.

An example is that somehow I expected that my running would automatically be easier with my brand new "boingy" running shoes.

It isn't. The three runs that I've done since buying the new shoes have been slower than I've run for a while, and have also felt harder.

The danger of unrealistic or overblown expectations is the disillusionment that can easily follow.

There are three ways to limit the damage of overly high expectations.

1. Make sure that what you are doing is ingrained as a habit and is not in danger of collapsing through disappointment. Whereas I might have become despondent and possibly even struggled to keep going with my running a year or two ago, because I have run every day now for 668 days, it doesn't even register on my radar as a possibility.
   
   
2. Make sure you set yourself a secondary expectation along the lines of "Well that would be fantastic, but if that doesn't happen, then at least...."
   
   
3. The third is to step back and look at the bigger picture - the inspiring vision. My inspiring vision for my running is to still be running a mile every day (at least on days where it's possible) until I'm in my 70's and beyond. My last three runs are not significant to that bigger picture. My new running shoes will probably still improve my chances of reaching my vision.
   

On de-educating myself

As I scampered along (see yesterday's post for explanation) on my mile-and-a-bit route this morning, I got to thinking about my 11-month granddaughter, who we babysat last night.

I find it fascinating, because at that age children know exactly what they like and what they don't like. They have none of the politeness that those of us who have been "educated" have, which often means pretending that you like something that you don't, just to keep someone else happy.

So, in many ways little children are much more honest and truer to themselves.

When my granddaughter likes what she's being fed, she opens her mouth for more or tries to grab the food herself to self-administer.

When she doesn't like something, she spits it straight out and wipes all traces of it from her mouth.

So you'd think that at the tender age of 11 months, that must surely indicate that children are self obsessed with no interest in what others think.

But my granddaughter is also highly skilled at creating rapport with others. If you cheer or clap when she does something, she smiles, laughs and does it even more.

She plays to and commands her audience. And yet, she is obviously not doing this from politeness or because she thinks she "ought to".

Maybe my education has taught me not to trust what I want and not to refuse what I don't want, and it's taught me to live my live doing exactly what I think others expect and want from me.

What if I were to de-educate myself to go for what I want, to refuse what I don't want, and yet still choose to have fun interacting others when it was fun and made me feel good?

Now, that could be interesting.

The meanings we attach

I scampered round my 2-mile circuit on a brand new pair of shiny running shoes this morning.

Now a new pair of running shoes may not sound anything special, but if you'd seen what my old running shoes looked like, then you'd know that it was a significant event.

I use the word scamper because that's how my friend in the running shop described my running style after filming me running on a treadmill in the shop.

Someone else in the shop said that scampering didn't sound too bad. Apparently he thought that it sounded like newborn lambs leaping about.

I thought, "Yes, they have very stiff straight legs too."

I found 2 dictionary definitions of scamper.

The first is "the act of moving hurriedly and in a careless manner", which probably describes my running style fairly accurately.

But the one I like better is "to run about playfully."

Isn't it strange what the same words can conjure up for different people.

We all load our own meanings and interpretations onto everything we hear.

The question is which meaning might be more motivating for you?

What young children taught me

I happened to be in the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern yesterday for a short time before a coaching appointment.

There were various people standing looking at the exhibit and others sitting on the floor just looking.

But what struck me was that every single young child, that was old enough to walk, in this huge open space was running around, either with a friend, or in some cases just on their own.

They were different ages, boys and girls, but I couldn't see one child that didn't just run around at some point in the ten minutes I was in there.

What is it that makes us want to run when we are young and are in a large open space? And when we were children, we didn't say, "I don't like running. I don't see the point of just running for the sake of it."

Young children run just for the sake of it. They run for the for the sheer joy and exhilaration of it. They run because it makes them feel alive and it feels like fun.

What do you do that has no point to it, but you do it for the sheer joy and exhilaration of it?

Finding the right balance

Yesterday I had another session with my physiotherapist who showed me that when I lean forward when I run, I'm increasing the impact when my feet strike the ground.

He got me to explore the difference in impact when I lean back compared to leaning forward.

It was quite an eye opener.

So on this morning's run, I was experimenting with angles of leaning to see what worked best in my objective to run more quietly.

In between thinking about my leaning, I thought that this was another example of finding the right balance.

Where do you need to tune the balance in your life?

10 words with massive impact

On my run this morning I remembered the email, I received last night, about the coaching workshop I ran for teachers on the Be the Best You Can Be! programme on Friday.

The email said, "Tony was fantastic and the training session went down well."

I don't know how long or how much effort it took the sender of the email to type those 10 words, but it must have been multiplied by a factor of at least 100 in terms of the impact it had on me.

What an easy thing to do, but what a gift to another person!

There's a line in the song "Money" written by Berry Gordy, of Tamla Motown fame, and Janie Bradford that goes, "Money don't get everything it's true. What it don't get I can't use..."

I don't think so.

What simple few words will you say today to express your appreciation of somebody?