Slow Progress-Acceptance
“He who has a WHY to live can bear almost any HOW.” (Nietzsche)
This first story is something I have discussed before, and the idea of ‘acceptance’ is a great opportunity to reconnect with this story.
It was a Friday evening, and Ingrid and I sat on the sofa, looking at the week ahead whilst the kids watched TV or were on their tablets - I can’t quite remember. This was a common scene as we progressed through the year of my walking. Balancing work and family commitments whilst shoehorning in the 17.5 hours needed to complete my walking. Usually, it fitted without too many challenges, and we fell into a pattern.
Mondays: I take Seb to dancing, go shopping then walk for up to an hour. Approximately 4 miles.
Tuesdays: walk early before work, and go to physio (once a fortnight). 9-13 miles.
Wednesdays: long walk if I can manage it early. Up to 13 miles.
Thursdays: Short walk during the day. 3-5 miles.
Fridays: Short walk during the day. 3-5 miles.
Saturdays: Short walk during the day. 3-5 miles.
Sundays: Long walk. 13-19 miles.
With so many variables, it made sense never to plan more than a week ahead. Focus on the next week. The next 52 miles. Nothing further ahead mattered. As we looked at our work and family calendars, getting in my miles looked challenging. Too many work and family commitments. So, what to do?
What I am about to tell you as the basis for my success for completing Challenge 52 may sound too simplistic an approach for a year-long walking challenge. That success was based on one simple truth that I held onto: accepting that I would do the walking. I knew what I was doing, and I knew why I was doing it, and because I had accepted these, the ‘how’ was no more than the practical detail of doing it.
With the regular opportunities unavailable, I looked at the calendars logically and identified the most obvious gap – Saturday night. And so it was that at 9pm on Saturday, having spent the day and evening with the kids, having had dinner, watched an hour of Eurovision, and a glass of wine with Ingrid, I set off on my long weekly walk – 19.6 miles on the trails north of my house. Six hours later, walking over 5 hours of them in the dark, without torchlight, I arrived home and crawled onto the sofa to sleep.
That is acceptance for me.
I know it is easy to over-simplify ‘acceptance’ into an ‘at all costs’ approach, yet this is not what it was about.
[Tim’s Notes: Damn! Another opportunity missed where I could have gone 100% Influencer/Throbber and told you how hard this challenge was, how much pain I was in. Yes, I enjoy Eurovision, but I am not sure I can blag missing it as being ‘painful’…]
Too often, when considering a new project, change of career, or new programme of learning we can (too) quickly get into the practicalities of ‘how’ it will be done. If I had tried to plan my year-long challenge to walk over 2704 miles, I would have found it impossible. How could I know how far I would be able to walk on Day 9, let alone Day 335! Instead, I chose the most important measures and accepted I would achieve them. I accepted I would walk every day, and I accepted I would walk 52 miles in a week. After that, the ‘how’ was simply planning.
If you can plan a day,
You can plan a week.
If you can plan a week,
You can plan a year.
Please accept these and start practicing them. Let me know how it goes.
Accepting my challenge was one week repeated 52 times made it achievable.
Accepting that I would achieve my walking, fitted around work and family commitments made it achievable.
Accepting I would not look further ahead than one week made it achievable.
I was very fortunate that I never came up against a challenge I couldn’t plan around. I had no major injuries during the year, although I did need to manage plantar fasciitis in my left foot throughout and deal with sore knees when I was walking too much on metalled roads and paths. I didn’t really get ill until near the end yet luckily never came down with the flu. How I achieved this with 2 kids and a wife who spent 5 days a week in school, I have no idea, but I have been blessed.
I also recognise that it is impossible to say how far I would have pushed myself to walk every day and do the 52-mile weeks. What I can say is that by planning ahead and thinking ahead, I was certain I could manage the walking.
[Tim’s Notes: Yes, I know… Another ideal opportunity to break out my Inner Throbber and bullshit you and anyone who would listen to how NOTHING WOULD HAVE STOPPED ME, and that I would have completed the walk even as gallons of green gunk emptied out of my sinus’ and I had 3 legs amputated. Yet, that is fiction – and this is a non-fiction book!]
Dwight Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States wisely said, “A plan is useless, but planning is essential.” Not one of my 52 weeks happened as I planned it, yet for each week I had devised a plan that would keep me on track and was adapted based on the emerging priorities of life.
When it came to illnesses, I approached my planning logically.
Unless close to death, I was certain I would be able to walk a couple of hundred metres in any day. That was the daily commitment sorted.
Unless close to death, I believed even flu would last no more than 5 days at its worst.
These planning assumptions meant it was very likely I could achieve the 52 miles in any week, even if I lost almost 5 days of longer walks.
This is the reality that I chose to accept and plan for.
Over to you
When you next have an idea to undertake a new venture, be in personal or professional, a new qualification or programme of learning, a new business, a new sporting goal, start by accepting you will do it.
Once you have accepted that you will do it, you are in the right frame of mind to determine how you can make it happen.
Get the pen and paper out, start up your laptop, turn on the voice recorder – whatever your preference is – and get down all of the things that need to be done to make the new venture happen.
Think time, money, others involved. Be objective around the practicalities.
Take your ideas outside and give them time and space.
[Tim’s Notes: Damn! I have done what I hate and created a ‘list.’ However, upon reading them, do not treat them as an ultimate guide but play with them and make them your own. Can you accept that..?]
Only when you have determined how you will achieve the new venture should you determine whether to progress or not. Only when you have determined how you will achieve something can you determine whether it is worth it or not.
And maybe have in mind the words of Graham Weaver, founder and Partner of the Private Equity firm, Alpine Investors, who is fond of reminding himself:
‘What would you do if you knew you wouldn’t fail?’
