The Strength to Start

Reminder: Italicised words are 'From the Journal'

"Ah, the same fear I always feel before a big Sunday run... and especially after I 'failed' the previous Sunday by not hitting my target kilometres. Will I make it? Will I quit again? 'Fall over' from lack of adequate nutrition? I don't know... I never do. As intuitive as I am, I can't see the future. But I do know I've done by best to prepare, I know that my legs are strong and I'm physically capable of completing the training run. No question there... Strength, it all comes down to strength, and there's so so many forms of strength to consider... 🐇🐇🐇

• The strength to push myself both mentally and physically 
• The strength to support and encourage myself instead of thinking I might fail... like last time
• The strength to let this run be this run and not compare it to any others, to practice agility and resilience
• The strength to accept that last time; no, I didn't hit the k's but I did what I felt I needed to do to take care of myself, and I can be proud of that dammit
• The strength to get started; to take the first step, despite the fear, because that's the hardest part!

I used to tell my personal training clients 'the hardest thing you have to do is get here, walk through the door, everything else is easy!' Wise words I've so often forgotten to apply to myself in many different facets of my own life.

... Yes, the strength to get started... to overcome hesitancy, and fear of either failure or success; to grapple with thoughts of all the other things we'd like to do or think we should be doing instead. All those other 'things' piled up like a huge heap of shit placed in front of our start line... but who put it there?🐰 At times it seems like life put this shit in our way. When we dig deeper however, we may find that it is composed of a lot of little choices we've made along the way without realising the consequences. What matters most is that we recognise that only we have the power to move past the stinking stack regardless of what it consists of or how it appeared. 

Ironically, whether we do or don't is of little matter... what matters is that we perceive it as a choice and practice the power of making that decision with awareness. Own that shit! 💩

For me, and my high-kilometre runs, it helps to simply choose to take that first step; nothing else matters. I tried, I practiced finding the strength to start. A different sort of muscle perhaps but one well worth flexing! I find it's also true for my work and writing on my blog. I spend time and precious energy thinking myself into paralysis, so much to do... where do I start?! But often just checking one email, looking up one set of data, writing down one word... Two hours later I find I've been working away contentedly if not passionately, my previous apprehensions or hesitations quite forgotten!

It occurs to me that this resistance to making a start is not only completely natural but abides to the very laws of Physics. There are two common forms of friction, static and kinetic. The force required to overcome static friction (moving something from a resting state to a mobile state) is always greater than kinetic friction (the force required to keep a moving object in motion). This is common sense to anyone who's pushed like hell against a couch to move it, using all their strength to heave it out of it's inert starting position; then we fall flat on our faces once the f*ing thing starts going! Physically, this is because the static friction is greater than the kinetic friction. Further to that, different objects and materials have different frictional values, making them easier to move and get into motion... A ball vs. a block, or sand paper vs. silk... The less 'rough' the easier it is to move... 

If I apply this logic to my training run, or God forbid my personal development adventure, there's a big benefit to smoothing the edges... easing the transition from stillness to motion... what would that entail? Perhaps one drafted email left intentionally behind in my work account to get me ticking along in the morning... A cruisy 7k before hitting a 16k more challenging route... A meme for a blog post I haven't written yet or an intriguing topic left floating at the top of a jounal page begging to be esoterically explored... 

And F* it, if none of that works take a deep breath and forge ahead; take a conscious view of the inner fear, hesitancy, 'should-dos' and any other source of internal friction and proclaim: 'Move over bitches, here I come!'"

Months later, the day before the Auckland Marathon, I was basically shitting myself. Due to some extremely persistant and worrisome chest congestion I hadn't been able to take a full breath in a couple of weeks. I was slowly convincing myself that I wasn't going to be able to finish the race. Conscious of these words I had written, I went to a pharmacy and got some eucalyptus oil to help my lungs and told my husband that I needed him to get my ass to the start line; these were my chosen mechanisms for easing the frictional forces in my brain telling me that I'd fail. I knew, however, if I could just make a start, take that first stride, my body would naturally do what I'd been training it to do for the past 4 months... I'd cross the finish line no matter what it took... and 42.2km later, I did. 

Time to play 'Where's Summer' 😂

Update

Two years later and I'll be honest, not only did I completely forget what I had written about in this article, but I also haven't run more than 20km since that marathon! This is obviously an anology using running, because that's kinda my thing, but getting ourselves to start something, anything, is bloody hard. This is especially true when we know a change is needed but deep, shifting the World or our identity as we know them, so we resist it until life annoyingly puts it in front of us so many times we can't ignore it anymore. Anyway, I caught myself writing something in my journal the other day I felt worth adding here, and it fits quite well especially considering that when I ran that marathon what made it easier to start was simply following the people in front of me, led by the energy of the crowd, all people who I trusted to have trained for the event... 🏃

Life is never easy for long, and sometimes the tasks ahead... or the choices to be made... feel so daunting, so overwhelming, so consuming, I don't want to face them... It feels easier to either run away or stick my head in the ground and pretend it'll go away (both methaphorically, of course)... I FOOL myself into thinking it's not what I want to do, that it feels wrong somehow, that maybe I need to take a different path... confounded by hesitancy and discomfort... when really I only need to choose A path, not necessarily THE path. There is no right or wrong decision, but the confusion stalls me while the sensation of stagnation, of 'being in a rut,' grates like sandpaper against every cell in my body. These feelings have taught me an important lesson... When I don't feel I have the Strength the Start, to lead myself through, it's ok to follow someone else who I can trust to get me moving. 🙏💖

Original Publication Date 28 December 2020, Revised 13 November 2022