Why is it the jobs we don’t want to do and push ourselves to do are SO hard?
Everything just seems too big to handle or to accomplish!
I was reminded of this when I was running and speaking to a colleague recently which helped me change my mindset and attitude towards something, I’ve made myself do but hate doing.
I started running a couple of years ago. I’ve always run on treadmills and hated them, now run on park runs and other community runs as part of my fitness regime, but still just ‘hate’ running, always have and always will!
It’s a challenge to get out of bed every Saturday morning and run, especially if it’s cold, dark, wet or generally uninviting.
Twice last year and so far, twice this year I’ve run 10km and noticed how different my mindset was when I started.
At the start I kept my focus on splitting the run into three segments, the first 3+kms went reasonably quickly and managed to keep up a great pace.
The middle section I kept my focus on being at half-way mark and then being on the ‘nearly finished’ the second of three segments.
As I was running on the last 3+kms, I was focusing on the fact it was ONLY 2-3 kms left, and ‘nearly there’.
The following week at Park Run, which is 5kms, I started off with the mindset of, twice round the lake, feeling it was so hard, 5kms feeling like a huge challenge and reminding myself how much I hated running. My colleague reminded me that mindset wasn’t helpful.
Did I know this? Didn’t I know that keep saying ‘I hate running’ is just what I would tell my clients, but still I fell into the same trap.
Something had changed in me that we need to change the switch in ourselves to focus on those larger tasks we’ve done so very well in the past and that the task or challenge in hand is nothing we haven’t tried, failed, achieved or practiced at some stage before, and that this time is no different.
The next time I ran my park run of 5kms, I reminded myself of the mindset of my 10kms run, and somehow twice round the lake and 5kms seemed very little. I kept my focus of the ‘last 3kms’ seeming nothing in the 10kms run.
I managed to change the switch and remind myself I’d successfully managed 10kms so why does 5kms seem so hard.
Changing the switch helped change my mindset. You too can use the same principle or process and see how you can apply this into your life, either work, business or fitness.
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