Last night I ran 8km. It was the fourth evening in a row that I had gone running. And I think it’s the first time in my life that I can say that – that I went running four days in a row. I feel pretty happy about that. It’s an achievement.
It’s not that I don’t run. I am supposed to be training for a marathon, and I should be running regularly. Frankly, I should be running more than 8km. About a month ago I ran 20km, for example, and that was pretty much on target. Now I am back to 8km and congratulating myself. Why?
Well, because I hated that 20k run. I felt awful afterwards. It was slow and painful. It was so slow that I started subconsciously telling myself I had to run faster. And I knew I had to run further. And so do you know what I did?
Nothing.
I just gave up for a bit. I didn’t run at all for a week. Which is fine. We all need a break sometimes. And then I got a bit of a cold, or flu, not bad and not for long, but enough to take a few more days off running. And then work got busy. And I made a few more excuses.
With every day that went past, my desire to go for a long run got weaker and weaker. Part of my brain was saying that I needed to go for a really long run to maintain my training, while the other part was saying that it really, really didn’t feel like it.
Yet no bit of my brain was saying “why not just go for an easy run that you might actually enjoy?” I had got so caught up in making it valuable that I was making it too difficult.
Sound familiar?
That’s the beauty of baby steps. That’s why baby steps aren’t just there for first-timers. They’re there for all of us to come back to, to remember that when we start again, we can just take a few small steps.
And so, after almost a month of no running, I told myself I could at least run around the park at lunchtime. Once I got changed, and got out there, I ran 4k. It felt good. The next day, I found a new training plan, that recommended a 30 minute run. I went a little bit longer, and ran 5k. The next day I called some friends, and we agreed to meet up for an evening run, and while in my head I was thinking I should do 8 to 10k, we stopped and started chatting at about 6, because I was tired. And then yesterday I met up with another friend, and we walked/ran and chatted for 8k.
I had run 23k in 4 days, starting out by telling myself I was going to take baby steps.
While obviously this works for running – it’s not even a metaphor – it works for everything else too. It definitely works for saving, investing and all forms of money management.
Don’t overthink it. Don’t aim for a perfection that scares you from starting. Take a step. Move forward. Feel the momentum from that step turn into the next one.
And if you ever stop, feel put off, or need a break – don’t worry. That’s ok. We all do.
When you’re ready, go right back to baby steps again. You’ll make faster progress because you’ve been here before, but allow yourself the time to enjoy those baby steps.
That, in the end, is the key to succeeding with baby steps. If we can make them so small and easy that they’re enjoyable, the next one will be enjoyable too, and we’ll be back to creating a streak like never before.
And that’s how I feel right now. I know I should take a break, but I want to go for a run today too. To keep going for a fifth day straight, a new record, something I’ve never done before, because the past few days have been so good.
That’s the power of baby steps.
Photo by Henry Matthews from Burst.
