It was five years ago this week—February 25, 2015- that I embarked on a training plan to run a half marathon. I remember it like it was yesterday—I signed up for a training program, downloaded the workout calendar, and said to myself, “I don’t really want to do this, but I just paid a whole bunch of money, so I better do it.” That was the initial motivator for actually getting out and running- the cost of the plan. I tried to find other motivators as I went out on those first runs- after all, it was cold, it was windy, it was snowy and icy, and some of the workouts required that I run up HILLS, and do pushups and really un-fun stuff like that. My first scheduled half marathon was only 95 days away. I had to get going.
The training program I joined was designed for business owners. The business advisor who developed it had read research showing that entrepreneurs who trained for races grew their businesses faster and increased their yearly revenues by leaps and bounds. She tested the theory by training for half marathons and triathlons herself, and also grew her business by hundreds of percentage points year over year in her first years of business. It was an enticing statistic.
The problem was I hated running. I had done a lot of it in high school for track and field (I was more of a sprinter than a distance runner) and for field hockey. When I turned 18 I actually said to myself, “I am an adult now. No one can ever make me run again. Ever.” Although I remained quite active throughout my 20s and 30s, I never really “trained” for anything. Other than signing up with friends to do a couple of 5k races, I hadn’t done any running as an adult. So I had NO IDEA how I was going to run a half marathon!
But that’s where the running training started to parallel my business training. I knew I wanted to be the largest foreclosure defense law firm in Connecticut, but I didn’t know HOW I was going to get there. I knew I was going to need a bigger staff and a bigger office, but I didn’t know HOW I was going to pay for that. I knew I wanted to take more time away from the office for vacation and conferences each year, but I didn’t know HOW the office was going to run without me there.
I set goals and took the first steps.
I learned that getting stuck on the HOW holds you back. You don’t need to know how to simply get started. You can’t know how, and it doesn’t really matter. You will figure it out. No one can tell you how YOU can achieve your goals- they can tell you how they have done what they have done, but you can have similar results with a completely different approach. What’s universal for everyone is, If you do the work, you will get results.
So there I was slogging through my first running workouts saying to myself, “Do the work, you will get the results.” And five years later, over a dozen half marathons and triathlons later, and several hundred percentage points growth in my business, I’m still running.
Want to accomplish a goal that seems impossible, like getting out of debt or stopping the cycle of constant struggle with money? I could help you like my training program helped me, but ultimately you need to set your own goals and do the work.
You will get results.