It all starts… and ends with a decision

Three years ago I ran my first marathon. More than that, I ran it with very little training. I had suffered an injury and was off running for over a year and a half. Then started with the relay Race for the Prague marathon in May (13 km). Then a half marathon in June, with just three or four runs in between. Then the actual marathon in august — once again, with just three or four runs in between. Sounds crazy, right? The best part was my time — 4 hours 21 minutes 22 seconds. This is what blew my mind, as I wasn’t expecting much. And this timing is great, given my total lack of training! My only goal was to finish the marathon before the 6 hours limit!

Would I recommend running a marathon without proper training? Not really — unless you are quite fit and / or crazily determined to do it. You see, what helped me finish it was the fact that I took an adamant decision. I knew I am running it, no excuses. I knew I will finish it. No excuses. I have decided that in April that year. And even though my decision wasn’t enough to make me train for the marathon, it was more than enough to get me through the actual event.

Why this decision? Why then? I was contemplating doing it for years. But there was always an excuse. My knees were hurting. I did not have time to train. I couldn’t join an official race. I was scared. Etc. etc. etc.

But enough was enough. The interesting part that made me think about decisions and how we deal with them is the segmentation of the process. When there’s a will, there’s a way. My will was to run the marathon, not to train for it. I just did not push myself enough to go through the daily training for weeks before the marathon. Once again, this is not something I recommend. I then started contemplating all the other situations in which I wanted to achieve something but I did not want to follow the traditional way of getting there. More and more examples started popping up — situations in which things worked out the way I was anticipating them were those situations in which I took a firm decision to achieve it. There was nothing standing in my way.

And then there were the other projects — the ones that I loved being part of, but were not THE ONES. For various reasons and circumstances. Things did not go as planned mainly because I did not make a conscious decision that they are worth my full time, effort and energy. And that they would help me grow enough and help me make the world a better place, compared to other projects I could invest my time in!

How are you tackling big projects/challenges? Which ones are the successful ones?

I’d be glad to connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat — handle @BogdanLearns.