Lets say you’ve been trying to do something, maybe even for awhile now, it could be anything.
You start a project or a simple goal but you continue to circle around and around and back where you started to what your currently trying to accomplish…
Try This… Heres How You Know If Your Mind Is Messing With You
Set a goal of running one mile in 7 minutes or less. For those that already can do this, set a different goal of being able to do 7 full pull ups in one set. Yes, perhaps hard for a lot of runners or anyone.
What comes to your mind. Oh that’s impossible, I can’t run a mile in 7 minutes. I’m fat, overweight and not even athletic, this is stupid. Big deal, “most” long distance runners don’t have an athletic bone in their body…
This is a perfect example of setting a goal, having your mind _ _ _ _ with you, and you contemplating on how to do it or NOT to do it. Some may say, ahhh it would be great if I could just run the mile in in 8 minutes or 9 minutes. I’ll set the goal to make it easy enough so that I won’t be let down when I don’t accomplish what I really want. That’s FEAR.
And then when I try what I’m trying to accomplish I’ll give it a half assed attempt. Then at least I could say I tried…
Depending on the shape that your in, you may have to set mini milestones to get to the 7 minute mile mark or 7 pull ups.
Set Mini Milestones to Get To
Starting off your first milestone could be to just walk on the track depending on your level of fitness. Then you might progress to running one full lap and then 2 and 3, so on… Now you can run 4 full laps without stopping but your time is slow. How do you get to run a mile in under 7 minutes…?
The real key could be a number of things. Nutrition and having enough energy. Working out in or out of the gym with specific exercises.
For everyone that does this there will be a set of THINGS TO DO to get to each milestone. Your first thing to do might be to set a schedule until you accomplish this. Say 3 days a week for 3o minutes.
Next you might have to go get a pair of athletic shoes. Then maybe it would be to focus on what exactly you should do when your training and how to train for this, maybe you need to get a buddy to do this with, etc…
I’d like to end this Challenge on this note. Watch yourself in this exercise. What I mean is to pay attention to how you think, react, what you go through. Listen to what your inner voice says.
How you do anything is how you do everything. If you have a weak mind when it comes to health you probably have a weak mind when it comes to making money or keeping the money you have made.
How fast you learn how to run a mile depends on a lot of things. Who’s your mentor for running, your confidence and belief levels in yourself, who you hang out with, actually putting in the ACTION time to accomplish this. Being committed and staying consistent. Being focused.
This is the same for every other thing your trying to accomplish in your life. If you can learn how to run a mile in 7 minutes (or doing 7 pull ups in one set) and actually accomplish it, you could pretty much do anything, just repeat the steps.
If your really interested in tackling this CHALLENGE, heres exactly what to do, and how to train for it.
I set a realistic time but somewhat hard for a reason. All your goals you set in life won’t magically appear. You usually accomplish something after a period of hard work.
How To Accomplish This Challenge
Plan your work and work your plan. Run 3 days a week and go to the gym 1 day. First day go long to build more endurance by running 2 miles (this gets you use to running). Your pace doesn’t matter.
2nd day run 10, 15 second sprints at 100%, after the sprint walk for 60 seconds and then sprint for 15 seconds. On the 2nd week increase your sprint time to 30 seconds, then 45 sec. and then a full minute. Your walk time always stays at 60 seconds.
Your 3rd day you need to find a nice and steady incline that’s at least 2 miles long close to where you live. A dirt road is better than running in a paved road. You may want to have someone pick you up at a certain time at the top part of the hill or you can just run the 2 miles uphill and walk back two miles.
Once you get in better shape you may want to add interval training while running uphill. Can help dramatically.
For a fourth workout day you might add in a strength day of free weight exercises to strengthen your legs. Squats, Lunges, One Legged Pistols, High Step Ups would all be really good.
If you don’t know how to do these exercises search Google for How to do lunges video, or video of one legged pistols.
Doing something like Yoga would be really good to.
A COMMON THEME
There seems to be this common theme that pops up every time you try to do something new that your unfamiliar with.
Your Not aware of what it will take to accomplish X task. The new thing interests you so you want to learn more about it. As you learn more, you learn what is required in order to accomplish X task.
Usually for most people once they learn what they have to do to accomplish the task or goal, they realize ohh, this is what I have to do. You’ll either try to stick it out for a week or so until something gets hard or just give up all together.
If you do proceed into the task further and go 1 week, then 2 and 3 and 4 you realize that the task your working on is either getting easier or needs refining.
Your Technique To Accomplish This
When you run make sure that you are breathing correctly. Get yourself into a rhythm. Some do this: inhale-2 steps, exhale-2 steps. You can even take breaths per 3 steps depending on how fast you are going.
Good runners have good posture. Don’t hunch over if you are getting tired. Hunching over limits your air intake.
Pace yourself, but have a consistent pace all throughout the run. (depending on what kind of training you are doing)
PUSH yourself. Your body and legs can go a lot faster than you think. Remember that there are several “winds” you can experience when running. Once you get past each wind you almost feel refreshed and can keep running more, so dont give up!
Make sure you are hydrated before you run. (for obvious reasons)
Psychology – First let me say that I hate running long distance. Running to me is one of the most boring things there is to do… The importance of doing this is in the challenge presented and being AWARE of what your mind is saying to you. That way when your doing stuff in other parts of your life the same CRAP may come up and you can realize this.
By realizing this you now can go forward and accomplish and be AWARE of what your mind is trying to do but your not letting it.
If your use to being really lazy your mind is going to try its hardest to NOT let you do this.
For some this task may take 30 days or less. Other 3 months or less… It really depends on where your at right now. Just think… The longer it takes you to do this shows you either, how weak you are mentally and how unhealthy you are.
Now if you have some condition that prohibits you from doing this, obviously don’t do it. But by no means, say oh yeah, this could be really bad for me so I’m not going to do it.
Try to master something in an experiment like this. I mentioned trying to get to 7 pull ups in one set. Maybe you want to try and walk on your hands for 100 yards or something. If you don’t do the 7 minute mile set something else that’s outside of your comfort zone.
If you exercise all the time I don’t recommend to run long distance. Its better to do short intense interval training. But this Challenge is something that’s short term and will take on average 1-4 months to accomplish. If it takes you longer that’s ok.