Lesson 4 – Taking The First Step

This post relates to my Blueprint for running, which is free to download here – from my other site, The Confident Runner.

I hope you’ve been getting the benefit from the lessons I’ve been sharing with you in the last few emails. Of course, all of this stuff only works if you take action. And taking action can often be the hardest part.

You may find this familiar – I know I do – the first step is often the hardest. Like going for a run in the rain. You look out of the window and it’s chucking it down. You’ve had a stressful day and quite frankly you’d rather stay inside in the warm and dry and can’t muster the energy to get changed and get out the door.

But, you also know that if you did get changed and get out, you would likely have a great run despite being soaking wet and quite possibly muddy and a little cold. It’s the same with the thousands of people who start the gym (or home/online training) in January, only to have stopped going by March. The initial drive wears off as the reality of working out sinks in, and all those false promises of fast, amazing results show themselves for what they really are – hype. The thought of going to the gym becomes painful and demotivating, even though when they get there they are able to push themselves and see a little progress. That first step is the hardest.

In the area of movement reeducation where I specialise, it’s no different. I’m often asking clients to move in small bursts throughout the day to help reprogram their nervous systems. The drills and exercises are often simple (and a bit weird looking), but they are not easy if you do them properly. However, just like the areas I’ve already mentioned, as well as general prehab and rehab, people can’t seem to stick to a simple plan.

Now, this is perfectly normal. There is nothing wrong with any of these people. What is wrong, is their approach.

They are all focusing on the result. This is why they get disappointed when they don’t get this result when they think they should. And that is super demotivating.

It’s also why, when I build my courses, I focus on transformation. If you get transformation regularly, you are going to be more motivated to keep working at it. And this will work for you in your running, and anything else you want to achieve.

The key is to focus on the process and not the result.

Read that sentence again and let it sink in. This is what all of the World’s top performers do, whether they are elite sports people, business people or the top 1% of surgeons, nurses, sanitary workers or any other field you can think of.

To make reliable progress, and to achieve your desired result, you need to put all your attention on the process. If you don’t think you have a process, think again. Go back to a time when you did something really well. Behind it, you’ll find a process.

Of course, it’s never going to be quite that easy. Improving your running is a pretty generic goal, and may involve several processes. But even here, there is a high level process you can follow and then build more specialised processes underneath.

If you are interested in my high level process for improving your running technique, you can download my free Blueprint For Running here.

I’m going to expand on this area over the next few emails as I believe it’s critical to your success in progressing your running, your fitness and lowering your stress. But don’t just take it from me. Mark Wiliams and Tim Wigmore devote entire chapters to this in their book The Best: How Elite Athletes Are Made.

Best wishes,

Chris

Founder

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