Monday, September 12, 2011

This journey is a marathon, not a sprint!!

Scott always tells me..."You know Katie,  it's a marathon, not a sprint".... He says this because he knows I'm an instant gratification girl and am not always real patient.  I want to see results right away, which is why I've been known to give up on things that show gradual results.  I love to run half marathon's....I've run seven so far and, after taking a year off from a hip injury,  plan on running another in January and more after that!  I don't just get up one morning though and say, "you know, today I'm going to run a half marathon."  That would be crazy!!  Instead, I make a plan....I follow a training schedule for 12 weeks up to the day of the race so I'll be as prepared as I can to run the whole race.  Back when I decided to run my first half marathon, I remember thinking that there was no way I could ever run for 13.1 miles without stopping...I had never run more than 3 or 4 miles in my life!!  Over 12 weeks of consistent training though, I did it....and I finished with a better time than I even thought I could!!  Much like training for a half marathon, almost everything in life takes consistent effort before real results are seen.

When I started this blog my plan was to blog twice a week, which would allow me to get everything I wanted to in before my 40th birthday.  As you can tell, I am not getting two blogs in every week.  It's harder than I thought it would be!  I love making myself sit down and write....it's actually been very therapeutic, considering I'm ADD and struggle taking the time to just sit and be quiet with myself and my thoughts:)  This morning I looked at my calendar and realized that I only have forty more weeks in my countdown and started to stress about getting everything in!  The reality is, I'm just trying to keep up with everything I've blogged about thus far and, to be honest, feel like I'm not doing a real good job right now at keeping up.  It hit me, as I sat down to write this morning, that it's ok....I'm not perfect.  The things I'm working on are good things, but it's going to take time to really see results.  Just because I'm striving and focusing on these things doesn't mean that, all of a sudden, when I turn forty I've totally accomplished everything I set out to do.  The thing I need to focus on is the journey of getting to where I want to be....and, honestly, that will not end when I get to next June.  I will have to keep up the training in order to see the results....much like when I am training for half marathons.    

So after a crazy couple of weeks of getting back into the school routine and soccer,  my office has been a little neglected, I still haven't had time (or made the time:) to get my closet organized...in fact, right now it's messier than ever (don't judge:), and I definitely don't feel like I'm always balancing everything real well.  But, on the other hand, I'm more organized than I was before, which feels great,  and am more aware of my attitude and focusing on enjoying the journey, however crazy it might be.  I don't know that I go to bed every night feeling like I've accomplished everything I wanted to, but I'm further ahead than I was when I got up that morning....so that's good!!

I'm going to Green Bay this week for a leadership conference and then to Chicago for another fun Arbonne event and have already been stressing about how to get everything done before I leave.  I need to grocery shop, exercise, clean my house (and closet:), work, cook meals, go to soccer games, blog (check:), etc.  I know it'll all be here when I get back, but I feel like I need to get it all done or else everything will fall apart while I'm gone....it's the supermom mentality that I struggle with at times:)  I know it's not true...my boys will be fine while I'm away (they'll probably enjoy me being gone actually:)...they always seem to survive.  Although, Cody did call me one time after I'd been away for a few days and said, "mom, when are you coming home??"  I thought it was so sweet that he had missed me while I was gone.  When I told him I would be home that evening he said, "oh good, we have NOTHING to eat around the house!!"  LOL!!  He did survive though and this time will be no different:)    

So far, I've written about four things I've learned from the past and five things I'm going to work on in my countdown to forty....that's nine total (I'm good at math:).  I'm going to keep plugging away on these countdown to forty goals....and I will have at least forty when I get to my birthday, even though many of them will still be, and may always be, works in progress.   So the fifth thing I've learned from my past (and am still learning) is that this journey I'm on is a marathon.....NOT a sprint!!   I know that Rome wasn't built in a day (my husband always tells me that too:) and neither will these things I'm working on be accomplished in a day.  I do know that with hard work and persistence I will see, and am already seeing,  the results I'm setting out to accomplish....even if not as fast as I'd like to.  I just finished reading 'The Slight Edge' by Jeff Olson and it was a great book!!  One of the things he says, among many,  that really stuck with me is "Every action that any of these goals requires is easy to do, but they're just as easy not to do.  Not doing it is usually more comfortable than doing it would be.  But that simple, insignificant error in judgement, compounded over time, will kill you.  It's the choice we face every day, every hour:  A simple, positive action, repeated over time.....or a simple error in judgement , repeated over time."  I want to keep doing the positive things that, in time, will show positive results....even if I'm not seeing them right now.  I know, just like training for half marathons, it's the daily runs that get me to the finish line of the race!!           

1 comment:

  1. Katie,

    I love your blogs and it is perfectly ok that you are not writing 2 a week. The ones that you do write are very poignant and thought provoking, and have been a blessing. Thank you my friend.

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