You want to progress. Get ahead. Do more, be more, acquire more, achieve more. 

 

Common aspirations.

 

There is a sense however of the terminal about this approach to progress and achievement. 

 

How do you look at progress?

 

Do you see it as achievement, reaching your goal perhaps? 

 

I believe there is a better way to look at it. 

 

I believe progress is a progressive tense. Well duh you say. I know. But not everyone thinks that way - I didn’t for a long time. 

 

You see, it’s not achievement (a noun) but achieving. 

 

It is a journey. 

 

A journey of continuing improvement. 

 

And it relates not to becoming, but to being. 

 

It’s about identity - who you are rather than who you aspire to be. 

 

Let me explain. I run, therefore I am a runner. 

 

Everytime i run it reaffirms that I am a runner. (I thank @jamesclear for this thought)

 

This simple perspective means that I do not struggle to get up in the morning to run. 

 

I do not lament my injuries.

 

 I never feel that I’m not good enough. 

 

I am a runner. 

 

I see getting up in the morning as an opportunity to practice me being me - a runner and me beating me - getting a little better each day.

 

I just ran 6.7km this morning. I haven’t done that since I ran the New York Marathon in 2011.

 

It was not my goal - the thing I was trying to achieve; it was just something I did this morning. 

 

But it took me a while to get here. I was injured and I spent the best part of a year slowly improving ...first walking, then walk running, then 1 km runs, 3 km runs, many days break, walking one day, running the next, a few days off. 

 

I did that for a year.

 

When I arrived in Barcelona from London in November 2020 I stretched it to 3 km every other day, then 4 km, then 4km run one day and walked the next, then I was doing 5km runs on a regular basis, then six. 

 

This week I have run 4 times, each time more than 6 km until today when I hit 6.7km. 

 

With each progression I am more me, more myself as a runner and it will not end because I can’t stop being me and I am a runner. 

 

So my first lesson out of this is that mindfulness changes everything. 

 

Become mindful of who you are, not an aspirational self but who you are. 

 

And then be it by doing it. 

 

If you know yourself to be an entrepreneur then be one - do it; if you see yourself as a snowboarder, then be one - go snowboard down a mountain. It matters little that you can’t snowboard … yet. You can, you just haven’t done it yet. If you are a snowboarder, then that’s what you are when you go do it. Nothing can detract from that or take it away from you. 

 

If you see yourself as a writer, then be one. Everytime you open your laptop and write, you are a writer.

 

Be mindful of your feelings - how do you feel when you say that to yourself: I am a surfer? I am a writer? I am a runner?

 

 Feels good doesn’t it? It feels more real than “I want to be” X or Y. 

 

Feels like coming home. 

 

Because in a way you are. 

 

You are not living in a fantasy, a future projection, or to someone else's expectation of who you are or should be, you simply are whatever you are. Now, in the moment, always.

 

There is nothing more authentic that you can do than by simply being who you.  

 

Of course I am not a runner without some assistance. I was injured after all and I’m not a physio, or doctor or physical healer of any stripe. 

 

During the last 1 to 2 years I’ve drawn on expert help mostly for Pilates routines from the gorgeous and talented @soohui, the ever-patient and deeply knowledgeable @#dianenye, and from the robust biomechanics of @mark d issot of @englishwren pilates. Without them I wouldn’t be on this journey.

 

Second lesson is to be mindful of the journey. That it is, indeed, a journey and not a destination. 

 

And there is no instant success, no quick fix or cure. 

 

If you're injured be mindful that it’s just a passing moment in time. 

 

Mindfulness and patience are inseparable bedfellows. 

 

Be mindful of your needs and limitations. If you need help, go get it, and if the help says to get back in the saddle again you need time + x + y practice then be mindful to treat this as the opportunity it is: to learn more about your own body, to be an active participant in the mending and getting into shape of your own body and mind, that is part of the journey, and not something that interferes with it or is a barrier to it. 

 

This is a mindful stance that will change the way you look at injury, or perceived ‘setbacks’ in any field, and change the way you motivate yourself to keep going on the journey to be you. 

 

Don’t stop. 

 

Don’t be troubled. 

 

Don’t sit it out. 

 

Be mindful and embrace it all with a bear-hug of acceptance so strong that it makes your eyes water. 

 

Mindfulness changes everything.