The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 202 - Running 2022

Transcript:

Pete: Hey, listeners. We are stopping by with a very quick and very exciting update before this week's episode, and that is that there'll be a live recording of The Long and The Short Of It podcast in New York City on Monday, the 22nd of August at 6pm Eastern. Jen, what are the details?

Jen: If you are in the New York area and you'd like to be a guest for this live taping, head on over to thelongandtheshortpodcast.com/live and you'll find the registration form there. But hurry up, because space is extremely limited. So head on over there, register, and we'll see you in New York City. And now, onto this week's episode.

Jen: Hello, Pete.

Pete: Hey, Jen.

Jen: Well, it is summer, the height of summer in the good ol' US of A.

Pete: Go away.

Jen: So, you know that means?

Pete: That means it's winter in the old Australia.

Jen: It also means that it's time for Jen's annual "let's turn something about running into a metaphor for life" moment.

Pete: I'll never get sick of Jen's running metaphors, so I'm curious what the 2022 metaphor is going to sound like. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Jen: Alright, so it's summer, I'm doing my morning runs, very much enjoying it. It's so beautiful.

Pete: Okay.

Jen: It's just so beautiful here...so sorry to rub that in. Anyway, I had this experience the other day while I was running that I was like, "Ooh, yep, found it. Found the metaphor for the year." So, I run pretty much the same route. Sometimes I change it up, but most of the time I run the same route. And I feel myself getting winded and like really wanting to quit at about the same moment. I actually, as I'm saying this, I'm envisioning it in my mind, I know exactly what this spot on my run looks like. And sometimes I give myself permission to just slow to a brisk walk for like fifteen seconds, and then I catch my breath, and then I start running again. And the other day, I was like, "I wonder what would happen if I didn't give myself that fifteen second break? Let me just see what happens if I run through it. Am I going to be so winded that I'm going to like collapse? Or, what's going to happen?" So I run past the spot, and I'm like, "Oh. That's okay. Let me let me keep going." And then, you know what, Pete? I ran the rest of my run without ever stopping for my fifteen second break. And I realized I had like created this muscle memory or this association that when I get to this particular place, I know I'm going to get tired, I anticipate I'm going to get tired, and therefore I am going to set myself up for this break. But when I pushed through it, what I realized was, I'm in better condition now than I was when I started the running season and I don't need that break anymore. And so, I had prepared myself to quit. I had prepared myself to slow down. But when I didn't, I was able to keep going. And I was like, "Oh. Where else have I set up cues for myself to stop or slow down? And if I experimented with pushing through that, I might be able to keep going, or maybe I'm so much farther along than I thought."

Pete: Ooh, okay. I can see thirty-four different ways this could be a metaphor for life, yeah. I feel like there's so many directions to potentially take it, so maybe I'll just throw a few out there. One is, how do we recognize our progress?

Jen: Mmm.

Pete: And realize that if we've been practicing a skill for a long time, we're likely better at it than when we started, and how do we catch that? It's difficult to sort of capture progress in the moment if you're doing something every day, I guess is one idea. The other is, like you said, where am I telling myself a story that I need to pause or take a break or go for a fifteen second walk? Like, is that a version of hiding? And this is a clunky way of me unpacking this, but like where am I doing that in my life that I might actually be hiding? Because then, I guess the flip side is, how do you distinguish between when you actually need a break? Because we're not suggesting that we always push through all the time and are like, "Ahh," until we collapse. We don't want that. How do you distinguish between healthy pushing through and unhealthy pushing through, I guess? Let me just start with those three ideas. What do you think? Where are you taking this?

Jen: Well, the thing that is really exciting me is this phrase you just used, I wrote it down, I put it in quotes because I like it so much and I've never heard it, "capture progress". How do we capture our progress? And with something like running, the idea is the more you do it, the more stamina you build up, the more capacity you build up, the more muscle and drive and, you know, whatever else is associated with it. I neglected that given, in this circumstance. I sort of had just decided like, "This is the level I'm at. And this is the level at which I'll stay." Like, very fixed mindset about that, as I'm saying this out loud. So with something that has easily measurable progress like, I don't know, Pete, how many words you're able to deliver in written form in a week, something like that. Or even, you know, with my singing clients who are trying to expand their range, or any number of things that you might be able to measure. I almost feel like, "Jen...don't you talk about this all the time to your clients?" Like, "Let's figure out how we're going to measure our progress." And then when we've reached a certain point, "Let's figure out, 'What is the next milestone?'" Like, I didn't associate that with myself. Hmm.

Pete: Hmm.

Jen: Interesting. I wasn't capturing my progress.

Pete: Yeah. I wonder if there's something in the fact that running is a solo pursuit for you, at the moment. Maybe it's difficult to capture progress, to monitor progress, to be aware of progress if we don't have someone helping us see it. Maybe.

Jen: Mmm. Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And you know what's interesting? I used to run with a running app...

Pete: Right.

Jen: ...and like a coach screaming at me.

Pete: I think that was the last year's metaphor, I think.

Jen: Yeah. And uh, I haven't been doing that this year. I've been using it as a time to catch up on my podcasts, and maybe I need to go back to having the coach screaming at me.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: Because that was really, really helpful.

Pete: ...screaming at you. I guess all of this is making me think about our relationship to discomfort.

Jen: Yes.

Pete: And the stories we tell ourselves about that, when we experience it. So, when we experience the discomfort of being out of breath when we're on a run, what do we do? Or when we experience the discomfort of having to give a talk in front of twenty people, what do we do? How do we react? And then, what story do we tell ourselves, hopefully, to get through that discomfort? Ten minutes into this podcast, I feel like I finally found my thread to your metaphor, which has something to do with our relationship to discomfort.

Jen: Yeah. This is also reminding me...and listeners who have been with us this whole time, you might remember this, but our newer listeners, maybe this will be some interesting context for you. The reason I started running was because I had an incident with my daughter when she was much younger, on a beach, where I kind of lost her around a bend on a beach that didn't have a lifeguard. And I hadn't realized she'd gotten so far away from me, and then I went running after her and I could not catch up with her. So I was like, "Wow, I need to start running." And at the core of that was a very intense purpose, that like, "I am running for my child." And my child is now twelve-and-a-half and doesn't need me to run after her anymore, and I wonder if I need to realign with some purpose around why I'm running because that might help me to increase my capacity for discomfort, if I cared more about why I was doing it.

Pete: Yes. I like this train of thought. It's almost like asking yourself the question, "What is this run for," each time you go for a run. Or, "What is this workout for," if I'm doing a workout.Or, "What is this swim for," if I'm going for a swim. And I think, you know, especially in the context of exercise....which I think is a useful metaphor. Like, I used to, when I was working in an office, do like a CrossFit workout every single morning before I got to the office. And so much of the, "What's it for," for me, was practicing getting comfortable with discomfort. Because so many of those workouts were so uncomfortable, and would be things I didn't want to do, especially halfway through when you just want to give up. And you get through it, and you get this like, this rush of satisfaction having completed something uncomfortable. And I think a lot about that as it relates to strength training, or functional fitness in my context, or swimming in a freezing cold ocean in the middle of winter. Like the, "What's it for," for me, a lot of it is practicing, experiencing, and navigating discomfort. But the, "What's it for," might also be like, "Getting fit so that I can chase my daughter," it might be, "Training for the Olympics," if you're an Olympian. Like, there could be any number of "What's it fors?" I guess the point is, to your great point, can we add some purpose to help us navigate discomfort?

Jen: Yeah. And it might be that for some people, the word "purpose" is what really works. And for some people, the word "goal" might work better. Like, I know some people right now who are training for marathons. And the idea that they have this date that is very concrete in the future, they push themselves every day as they're running because they know they have this marathon to complete on such and such a date. So, that goal of crossing the finish line at the marathon. And then, there are some people who run a marathon in order to raise money for a cause they believe in.

Pete: Right.

Jen: And so the run feels like both goal driven and purpose driven, purpose driven goals.

Pete: I like that, yeah. "Goals", "intentions", "purpose", whatever it needs to be. And so, have you noticed anywhere else...I mean, you kind of alluded to the question of like, "Where else am I giving myself a fifteen second break that I might not need?" Have you noticed anything pop up, in noodling on that question?

Jen: Yes, I have, Mr. Shepherd.

Pete: Let's hear it.

Jen: I have a bunch of projects that are hovering around the 75% complete mark right now. And I'm wondering if this moment, this 75% complete moment is a little bit like the spot I can so clearly envision on my run, in front of the house with a white pickup truck in front of the speed bump. Like, I'm wondering if, when I hit this certain point in a project, I give myself permission to slow down a little bit. So you know, I do all the, "Who's it for," "What's it for," work before I begin a project, but this is probably the point where I need to go back and look at it again, to give myself that extra boost of energy to get to 76% and so on.

Pete: Yeah. It reminds me a lot of the concept of the dip, which we've recorded an episode about, Seth Godin's written a book about, which is essentially that moment in a project or during a run where you feel like giving up. It's the dip. And it happens, you know, Seth Godin would assert it happens during any creative endeavor, or project, or business, or run, or workout. I would say, it happens at some point during any workout.

Jen: Yeah. I associate the dip with anything worth doing. Anything worth doing is going to have a dip in it.

Pete: Yeah. I like that. Anything worth doing will have a moment where you feel like giving up.

Jen: Yes.

Pete: That's such a useful thing to remind ourselves of, or at least I'm finding it a useful thing to remind myself of. Because when you have that experience, it's so easy to convince yourself that the thing is not worth doing anymore, because it's hard and uncomfortable. But actually, what you suggested and what the dip suggests is, it's almost the sign that it is the thing worth doing, because it's uncomfortable.

Jen: Yeah. True. Okay, can I take this in a slightly different direction? Because this is making me think of this experience I had with a client about a week and a half ago. And I believe she listens to this podcast, so she will hear this story and know what I'm talking about. So we got together in the studio to sing through some pre-pandemic material, to see if it was worth keeping or tossing. And as she was singing, I saw on her face and in her body, her preparing for these high notes as if they were going to be really hard. But she had been working on her voice so much during the pandemic that when she got to the high note, like mid-note, I could kind of see her be like, "Wait a minute. That's not high. That's so easy. What? What's happening?"

Pete: Huh.

Jen: And this happened song after song after song. And we ended the session and we were like, "Well, I guess all of your repertoire is now too low for you. And we need to replace it with stuff that's higher and a little harder." Because she had worked so hard on this particular skill set, and then had anticipated that the old story would still be true, which is, "This is high. This is hard. I need to muscle this." And turns out, she had made so much progress. But she had not yet, in your words, captured her progress. So that was like a big aha moment of, "Oh. I'm so much farther along than I thought."

Pete: Yeah. And if I was to look at this through the lens of confirmation bias (which I will), that example had you present. So we were talking a little earlier about like, in order to capture progress, measure progress, is it helpful...I'm not sure it's a blanket rule that you only capture progress when there's someone else there. But maybe it's easier to acknowledge, capture, experience progress when there's another person, be it a coach or a trainer or a friend or an accountability buddy, just helping you see that and acknowledge that.

Jen: Yeah. That is so fascinating. I had not made that connection. Very interesting.

Pete: Yeah. I mean, I mentioned before like, say, a CrossFit workout or a functional fitness workout. Like, I used to do, every day, a class where I would do a workout with a bunch of what became friends. And it was like a really social thing. It was a community. I absolutely loved it. And every now and then, if I was away for work or on a holiday, I might go into like a hotel gym and try and do a workout. And every single time, I would get halfway or a quarter of the way through what maybe was a typical workout with my friends in the morning, and be like, "I think that'll probably do for today." There's something in the community and the accountability of someone else present that enables us to like not have the fifteen second break, but also to acknowledge that maybe we're capable of more than we realize or like to capture that progress somehow.

Jen: Mmm-hmm. Yeah, the importance of accountability. Accountabilibuddies, as my friend Steve Pacek says, accountabilibuddies.

Pete: Accountabilibuddies. And then, I guess the other thing I'm realizing is this idea of like...have you heard of the phrase, "What gets measured gets managed?"

Jen: Yes.

Pete: So like, in order to manage something or get better at something or strategize for something, we need to actually measure it. Measure, in this context, is us capturing the progress. Because in order for us to manage it, i.e. figure out if we need to push through/figure out if we need to rest/figure out if we can run an extra kilometer, we have to have measured where we're at with our progress and the skill development that we're working on.

Jen: Ooh, yes. I would just add to that, that we could also be measuring our capacity for discomfort, in addition to the skill. That if we measure our capacity for discomfort, then we can manage it, and we can push it and we can push it more and push it more until, you know, the edges expand.

Pete: Mmm. Yes, yes. Okay. Yeah. So tomorrow, Jen, when you go for your run and you reach that same point where you feel like giving yourself a fifteen second break, what are you going to say to yourself?

Jen: I'm going to say, "Jen, get ready, because we're going on a fifteen second sprint." We're going to pick up the speed tomorrow, see if I can handle it.

Pete: Alright. Alright, I like it. Okay, sprint and push through. And I look forward to, and I'm sure the listeners look forward to, fifty-two weeks time when Jen has another summer running metaphor for us all to noodle on.

Jen: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.