2020 - A Year Without Finish Lines
I had the opportunity to go on a physically distanced walk with a good friend to catch up and reconnect on the weekend. We met years ago through cycling and so of course the conversation eventually led to that topic. We were discussing the fact that we had both taken a break from riding and were just starting to get back to it. Our breaks occurred for different reasons, and coming back was something that we were both enjoying. And part of that enjoyment seems to be stemming from the fact that we are approaching it much differently than before. We discovered that neither of us are using computers on our bikes these days - so no way of knowing while riding what our speed/distance/cadence etc. is. Instead we are riding by feel and just enjoying the time out on two wheels. As my friend put it "I don't need a computer to tell me whether or not I am having a good ride". I could not agree more.
It got me thinking about how that sentiment could apply across so many areas of our lives right now. Whether or not you are an athlete, we all find ways to measure our progress and successes on personal and professional levels. These check-ins and measurements of growth are very important parts of our development and I believe that in order to move forward we need to be able to compare where we started, where we are currently and where our future goal lies. The part that I am starting to soften on is creating a hard "finish line" so to speak as a way of measuring success. Needing to always feel like you are striving for something gets tiring after a while and you start to lose some of the joy of the activity along the way.
This spring I was signed up to run two races that I needed to defer from last year, due to injury. I had these in my sights and started my training in early December. I honestly slogged through it. There were so many mornings that I was just happy to have the run finished, not really enjoying the activity or ability to get up and run like I used to. I often found myself questioning why I was doing this, and making decisions around perhaps shortening from marathons back to half marathons or perhaps not doing any races at all anymore. There were good runs as well, don't get me wrong...but the hard ones felt like they outnumbered the good ones this time around. Then along came corona and also a hamstring injury that served as a one-two punch and put those races into the 2021 roster. I was initially disappointed at having these pushed once again. But as the days and weeks unfolded I started to feel a sense of relief, as I knew that I would have been going into these events with a "Where Is the Finish Line?!?" mindset and that would have made for some LONNNNNGGG runs.
I guess what 2020 has shown me is that we can remove the finish lines and still make things happen. We will still accomplish goals and can still feel good about those accomplishments without needing a finish line to tell us that we did a good job. And maybe having a moving target is also good for us from time to time. We reach what we thought was our goal and realize that we have more to give, more that we can do and so we stretch a little further and accomplish more than we thought possible.
It will be interesting in 2021 when those races do take place to compare how I feel about finish lines after a year of none. For now I am going to just enjoy the freedom and will wait and see if this year off helps to soften the finish lines that will come in the future.
It got me thinking about how that sentiment could apply across so many areas of our lives right now. Whether or not you are an athlete, we all find ways to measure our progress and successes on personal and professional levels. These check-ins and measurements of growth are very important parts of our development and I believe that in order to move forward we need to be able to compare where we started, where we are currently and where our future goal lies. The part that I am starting to soften on is creating a hard "finish line" so to speak as a way of measuring success. Needing to always feel like you are striving for something gets tiring after a while and you start to lose some of the joy of the activity along the way.
This spring I was signed up to run two races that I needed to defer from last year, due to injury. I had these in my sights and started my training in early December. I honestly slogged through it. There were so many mornings that I was just happy to have the run finished, not really enjoying the activity or ability to get up and run like I used to. I often found myself questioning why I was doing this, and making decisions around perhaps shortening from marathons back to half marathons or perhaps not doing any races at all anymore. There were good runs as well, don't get me wrong...but the hard ones felt like they outnumbered the good ones this time around. Then along came corona and also a hamstring injury that served as a one-two punch and put those races into the 2021 roster. I was initially disappointed at having these pushed once again. But as the days and weeks unfolded I started to feel a sense of relief, as I knew that I would have been going into these events with a "Where Is the Finish Line?!?" mindset and that would have made for some LONNNNNGGG runs.
I guess what 2020 has shown me is that we can remove the finish lines and still make things happen. We will still accomplish goals and can still feel good about those accomplishments without needing a finish line to tell us that we did a good job. And maybe having a moving target is also good for us from time to time. We reach what we thought was our goal and realize that we have more to give, more that we can do and so we stretch a little further and accomplish more than we thought possible.
It will be interesting in 2021 when those races do take place to compare how I feel about finish lines after a year of none. For now I am going to just enjoy the freedom and will wait and see if this year off helps to soften the finish lines that will come in the future.
Comments
Post a Comment