Resolutions are easy (Week 1)
"Anyone can take a reservation. It's the holding of the reservation that's important!"
Jerry Seinfeld's words to the car rental agent hit me mid-way through a 10 kilometre run on the first week of January. My mind had been drifting off as I thought about New Year's resolutions and how notoriously stupid they are. "This year, I quit smoking!" "I'm gonna lose 50 pounds!" So dumb. Still, I like the basic thought of making a commitment, as long as you can stick to it. It struck me that the tough part about resolutions isn't the making of them. It's the keeping of them. Let's face it, we just don't.
Fact is, 80 percent of New Year's resolutions are broken by February.
So there I was, doing what so many others on that achingly beautiful day were doing along Victoria's sun-drenched shores. Trying to make myself a better person. Then and there, I could have committed to some big running goal for the year. Maybe a marathon! Trouble is, I'd already run 9 of them, and it was getting stale. What about an ultra-marathon? Sorry, just not that type of person. Then the germ of a simple idea planted itself as I scrambled over the rocky shoreline. What about running every single day for a full week? I'd never done that before. Interesting. And then, what about doing something completely different the next week? And after that, what about keeping it going for an entire 52 weeks, with each 7-day resolution different from the next? This could be the ultimate answer to New Year's resolutions for people who don't like long-term commitments. And maybe, over the course of a full year, I'd learn stuff about myself, I'd grow, I'd become a better person, and the goodness would manifest itself in 52 different ways.
Let's start by being realistic. There are some things people just can't–or maybe shouldn't–be doing. For me, running was a pretty low bar to hop over. For others, it could be monumental. But I was already looking 6 months ahead and imagining challenges far beyond my comfort zone. So how about joining me on my year-long journey? Offer me some suggestions in the comments space. Tell me about your achievements. Maybe this is the start of a whole new way of looking at our lives and taking those small steps that could lead to big ones.
Okay, back to the running. I'm basically a lazy person, and I like things to be mostly easy and comfortable. When I got back home, the first thing I did was look at a 7-day weather forecast. I would need to run every morning in the dark before going to work, and I wasn't going to do that in the rain. It looked good. Maybe a sprinkle here or there. My first resolution, to run at least 5 kilometres every day, was underway.
My iPhone buzzed me awake at 6am the next morning. I was still sore from running the day before and it would have been so easy to roll over and nod off. My wife Val was fast asleep beside me, so I lay there for a few minutes staring into a dark ceiling before slinking away, and slowly–really slowly–putting on my running gear. I quickly ate a banana (my superstitiously weird secret to keeping leg cramps away) and popped out the door.
Now you may think that a guy who's run a mittful of marathons would find this easy. It wasn't. For one thing, I'm 55 years old now. For another, I had never run 2 days back to back before. It may sound odd, but I could never mentally go out and do the same thing day after day. I had always focussed on intensity and effort over repetition. And it had always worked for me. I'd run marathons in New York, Chicago, Paris, Berlin, London and even qualified for the holy grail of running in Boston. And I'd done it with what I call a "Middle of the Road" slacker's attitude. To me, running was mostly a way of seeing the world's great cities from the best vantage point possible–the middle of their streets.
So my Day Two run was over in less than 30 minutes, and I'd chalked up 5 kilometres. Could I do this for an entire week? TBD.
At lunch that day, I mentioned to some people I work with that I'd had this idea. I tossed it out there like it was no big deal, and I was blown away by the response I got. It was just so fresh to them. Within minutes, I had a hand-written list of suggestions. And since that day, people at work have been continually stopping by to add more to the list. They were really into it, and not just for me. Suddenly, they were making 7-day commitments of their own.
Someone suggested I write a blog about it. That's how Goodness52 started. I don't know why, but I've never blogged before. I've always felt I had plenty to share and hey, I write for a living, so a blog should have been a natural. But one thing about being a writer for hire, the last thing you want to do when you get home at the end of the day is write even more. So this would be one more thing to take me out of my comfort zone, and get me to take on a new challenge.
The whole thing is blindingly simple. Something inspiring and new every week, done for 7 consecutive days. See if it can go a full year. Off we go!
NEXT WEEK: No meat!
Jerry Seinfeld's words to the car rental agent hit me mid-way through a 10 kilometre run on the first week of January. My mind had been drifting off as I thought about New Year's resolutions and how notoriously stupid they are. "This year, I quit smoking!" "I'm gonna lose 50 pounds!" So dumb. Still, I like the basic thought of making a commitment, as long as you can stick to it. It struck me that the tough part about resolutions isn't the making of them. It's the keeping of them. Let's face it, we just don't.
Fact is, 80 percent of New Year's resolutions are broken by February.
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| Shoreline in Victoria BC, Canada |
Let's start by being realistic. There are some things people just can't–or maybe shouldn't–be doing. For me, running was a pretty low bar to hop over. For others, it could be monumental. But I was already looking 6 months ahead and imagining challenges far beyond my comfort zone. So how about joining me on my year-long journey? Offer me some suggestions in the comments space. Tell me about your achievements. Maybe this is the start of a whole new way of looking at our lives and taking those small steps that could lead to big ones.
Okay, back to the running. I'm basically a lazy person, and I like things to be mostly easy and comfortable. When I got back home, the first thing I did was look at a 7-day weather forecast. I would need to run every morning in the dark before going to work, and I wasn't going to do that in the rain. It looked good. Maybe a sprinkle here or there. My first resolution, to run at least 5 kilometres every day, was underway.
My iPhone buzzed me awake at 6am the next morning. I was still sore from running the day before and it would have been so easy to roll over and nod off. My wife Val was fast asleep beside me, so I lay there for a few minutes staring into a dark ceiling before slinking away, and slowly–really slowly–putting on my running gear. I quickly ate a banana (my superstitiously weird secret to keeping leg cramps away) and popped out the door.
Now you may think that a guy who's run a mittful of marathons would find this easy. It wasn't. For one thing, I'm 55 years old now. For another, I had never run 2 days back to back before. It may sound odd, but I could never mentally go out and do the same thing day after day. I had always focussed on intensity and effort over repetition. And it had always worked for me. I'd run marathons in New York, Chicago, Paris, Berlin, London and even qualified for the holy grail of running in Boston. And I'd done it with what I call a "Middle of the Road" slacker's attitude. To me, running was mostly a way of seeing the world's great cities from the best vantage point possible–the middle of their streets.
At lunch that day, I mentioned to some people I work with that I'd had this idea. I tossed it out there like it was no big deal, and I was blown away by the response I got. It was just so fresh to them. Within minutes, I had a hand-written list of suggestions. And since that day, people at work have been continually stopping by to add more to the list. They were really into it, and not just for me. Suddenly, they were making 7-day commitments of their own.
Someone suggested I write a blog about it. That's how Goodness52 started. I don't know why, but I've never blogged before. I've always felt I had plenty to share and hey, I write for a living, so a blog should have been a natural. But one thing about being a writer for hire, the last thing you want to do when you get home at the end of the day is write even more. So this would be one more thing to take me out of my comfort zone, and get me to take on a new challenge.
The whole thing is blindingly simple. Something inspiring and new every week, done for 7 consecutive days. See if it can go a full year. Off we go!
NEXT WEEK: No meat!
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