Over the last several months, as I have been meeting runners (current, former, and aspiring) at book signings and events, I have been amazed to discover how many people want to run and don’t. Or who used to and no longer do. There always seems to be something in the way. Time challenges, other commitments, niggling injuries; these are some of the “reasons” I hear.Interestingly, when I ask them why they want to run, there’s a good deal of unclarity. Health and fitness for sure. But after that? Not much, at least not yet. They don't have event goals, such as running a 10k, half or full marathon, or anything like that. No time goals either.
Nor do they have any goals as to what they’d do with their enhanced fitness. What would fitness give you? If you had that fitness NOW, what would you do?” I ask them. A quizzical look comes back to me as if to say, “Isn’t that the goal itself.”
If you are running for the sake of running, you may as well be a rat on a tread wheel. Ultimately, you are getting fitter so that you can run on that tread wheel faster. Nothing wrong with that, but I think you might be missing the point.
Running can be a hi-temperature crucible in which to fire your greatest success and fulfillment. What transforms running from a “have-to” to a “want-to”? Mission.
Mission will bring a purpose into your running (and this applies to any exercise you care to choose) and you will transform your experience. Whether it’s performance goals for the running itself, or goals that build upon what your running gives you, a purpose to your running will elevate your commitment and lock it in.
Sure, I’ve had running focused goals such as first marathons, quicker times, and so on. And those goals have certainly inspired me. This year, my intention is to move into ultrarunning.
But there have been many deeper purposes that have lit a fire in me and that have my running front and center in the face of even the stiffest challenges. All of them answer the question, how can I pass on the benefits of my running. Regaining the ability to throw my daughter in the air and catch her as I bathe in the glee of their laughter; raising funds for an important cause; reclaiming and amplifying the power of intentional living.
These and other missions have ensured that my running comes first. And when I put it first, there always seems to be time for everything else. When I put all the other stuff first, I never quite seem to have enough time for my running.
Purpose will give you a reason to make time, prioritize your running, and balance your approach so that you can run injury free. These are all within your dominion. A mission will boost your morale so that you can springboard off of the things that challenge your running and deepen your experience. It works in running and it works everywhere in life. Here’s a great example of the power of purpose that I read only today.
On a flight to Phoenix this morning for my monthly roll-in-the-creative-mud with my fellow Steve Chandler Mastermind members, I was flipping through the in-flight magazine and caught a profile of Dr. Bennett Deboisblanc, a physician who was on duty for five straight days the front line of the emergency response after Hurricane Katrina.
With the two emergency generators flooded and all the lights out, the doctor and his staff knew this was not going be like any drill they’d practiced.
The heat was stifling. With 300 already sick patients, 50 of them in critical condition, the hospital in waist deep water, no electricity, and supplies dwindling. You can see a scene that was quickly developing into secondary disaster waiting to happen.
They waited 36 hours to be rescued, but none came. First responders were stretched way beyond capacity. Under such pressures, tempers can fray and morale can dwindle rapidly. It’s understandable.
Then something shifted. The group decided they would have to create their own rescue. “Morale in the hospital rapidly improved once we had a mission,” Deboisblanc said.
He, some 600 nurses, physicians, and security guards decided that they’d have to create their own rescue plan. One of the nurses used her cell phone and got a live feed into CNN. A helicopter operator in St. Louis saw the feed and took to the sky to help. The hospital and the surrounding area was too flooded for him to land, so using small boats from the fire department, the hospital staff floated patients one at a time through the waist-deep water to a parking structure three blocks away. The helicopter airlifted the patients to safety from there.
Your running can airlift you to safety—and higher—any day you let it. It will relax your body, ease your mind, and free your soul.
If your commitment is intermittent try this: make a list of what you get out of your running, a list of how you benefit. Then, make a list of what you can do with those benefits—what you can give as a result of those benefits, whose lives can you touch? That second list is the doorway to your consistent, joy-filled, and highly successful running.
