Three things of note happened over the past two weeks:
I moved homes after having lived in the same space for the better part of ~7 years.
I ran my first timed 10k in nearly 6 years, and needless to say it was the slowest 10k I’ve ever run in my life.
I had numerous check-in calls with my training clients, discussing their progress and the movements, skills and habits they once struggled with, but now embody.
What bound these three things together was a recurring theme: A reluctance to embrace learning (and re-learning), to start from scratch, to fight through the troughs.
Moving to a new place comes with its own mini-challenges. I had been living at the house place for a major part of the past 7 years. I had set routines, I had set spaces, and I had a set idea of what happens in the house, where it happens, and when.
Moving to the new house - while a lot of fun - has also forced me to re-learn patterns. No more can I move about the space based on muscle memory alone. The switches are placed elsewhere, the rooms are designed differently, the kitchen is aligned diametrically opposite to what I was used to, and so on. Instead of embracing the fact that a few days of learning will set me up for the rest of my time at this house, my initial instinct was to bemoan my lack of muscle memory.
It was the same when I decided to run the 10k. I had little to no practice, hadn’t run that distance in a long time, and was weary of embarrassing myself by finishing slower than I’ve ever done. Till a day or two prior to the race I kept wondering if I should participate or back out.
Flashback to a decade ago: I am running my first ever 10k, I have no idea of the course, I had no idea about hydration, and I had no clue about the course. I had never run a 10k prior to that in my life, and I had decided to run a timed one as my first ever run. Leading up to it I was excited, I was looking forward to testing myself out, to seeing whether I will be able to complete the 10k and if so, how long it would take for me to do so.
What changed? Something about our system leaves us jaded to learning new things.
By the time we are fully developed adults - 25 years or so - our desire to learn something new, something out of comfort zone is beaten out of us.
It is much harder when you’re not learning something new but are looking to repeat what you were previously good at. Currently sucking at the same task that you once were adept at is far harder than never knowing what your potential is/was and giving it a go.
And because you’ve the burden of history, your approach to re-doing, re-learning is vastly different from when you’re a complete novice:
You want to be an expert at your first try, hoping to regain lost skills.
You forget that you weren’t good at those skills from the get go, but worked hard to get there. But when you need to re-learn those same skills, you want to jump straight to being a finished product, unwilling to go through multiple iterations.
Speaking to numerous clients of mine over the past week led to the same revelation:
Some clients had struggled with Sit-ups, some with Lunges, others with their Squats, and a few more with their Push-ups.
In the middle of learning all of these movements, it was a pain, an annoyance.
In hindsight, everyone is happy they went through the struggle.
Now the same movements they struggled with are the movements they enjoy performing the most.
The movements that they were struggling with, the skills they were finding hard to imbue, the habits they couldn’t follow consistently are now an extension of themselves. They now feel like a second skin.
The learning is hard and the path taken isn’t easy, but you almost always look back at the discomfort you went through and be happy that you were able to combat it, embrace it, and fight through it for you’re now a better person for having done the same.
Likewise with my 10k. It did end up being the slowest timed 10k I’ve ever run, and yet I enjoyed the run, and I am glad I attempted something where how good or bad I would be wasn’t a foregone conclusion, and I learned to embrace that uncertainty.
"The secret to winning is learning how to lose. That is, learning to bounce back from failure and disappointment—undeterred—and continuing to steadily march toward your potential. Your response to failure determines your capacity for success." - James Clear
What I enjoyed reading this past week: This lengthy but absolutely fantastic blog on how to negotiate your salary. Even if you’re self-employed - like I am - you should give this a read.
What I enjoyed listening to this past week: A fun conversation with Rich Barton, who has founded companies such as Zillow, Expedia, Glassdoor.
What I enjoyed watching this past week: Giving a small sandwich shop a big rebrand. Everything about this video was great. Pure, old-school, vintage Youtube.