Keep Your Goals In View.

We all start the year motivated to achieve some goals before the year runs out, but unfortunately, most of us abandon our goals by the first quarter of the year. One of the reasons that we often don’t follow through on our goals is that we don’t have them in view, constantly reviewing them and impressing them on our subconscious. As the saying goes, be careful what you ask for; you might get it. Some strategies for keeping one’s goal in view include creating a vision board, using your goals as your wallpaper/screensaver on your gadget, writing them down and placing them where you can always see them.

Using this simple principle, I ran nine full marathons and two half marathons in 2023. At the beginning of the year, I set an audacious goal of running across all ten Canadian provinces. At first, I did not know how to achieve this goal, but I had a strong why. I printed out the list of marathons, the city and the date of each run. I had the printout pasted on the wall, which I saw every morning before starting my day, and it was also the last thing I impressed my subconscious before sleeping. I trained hard to achieve this goal. I averaged 2-3 hours of training, equalling 854 hours and 23 minutes of training log time in 2023.

The ten-marathon running challenge was extremely tough to execute, requiring many sacrifices, trade-offs, logistical commitment, and perseverance. For instance, in May 2023, I ran four marathons back to back, travelling to three different cities (New Brunswick, Halifax and Calgary). It was tough on the body and required a lot of mental fortitude, but in the end, I pulled it through. How did I do it? I had my goal impressed on my subconscious daily.

Toronto Full Marathon, Ontario – May 7, 2023 – 4 hours 13 minutes
Stewart McKelvey Fredericton Marathon | New Brunswick | 3 hours 53 minutes | May 14, 2023
Emera Blue Nose Marathon, Halifax | Nova Scotia | May 21, 2023 | 4:02;56
Servus Credit Union Calgary Marathon | Alberta | 4 hours 31 minutes | May 28, 2023
Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries Marathon | Winnipeg | June 18, 2023 | 3:59:16
2023 GMS Queen City Marathon, Regina | Saskatchewan | 3:20:49 | September 10, 2023
Beneva Quebec City Marathon | Quebec | October 1st, 2023 | 3;20:59
Royal Victoria Marathon | British Columbia | October 8th, 2023 | 3:31:15
Prince Edward Island Marathon | Charlottetown | October 15, 2023 | 3:25:13

Half Marathons

Mississauga Half Marathon | Ontario |April 30, 2023 | 1:39:53
Marathon Beneva de Montreal Half Marathon | Montreal | 1;33 | September 24, 2023.

By keeping my goals in sight and front view, I could achieve them. As the saying goes, how you do one thing is how you ultimately do everything. I learned a lot about myself while attempting and executing the ten-province challenge. One of the most important lessons has been that I can achieve anything I set my mind to and for which I am ready to pay the price. I was able to reduce my personal marathon finish time from 3:44 to 3:20. The same determination and resolve is what is going to be required to achieve my next set of goals such as running a sub-3 hour marathon.

Meditations

Daily Calm with Tamara Levitt – Starfish

Distractions frequently call on your attention, whether sound, thought, or physical sensation. Sometimes, our inability to concentrate can feel overwhelming or make us feel insecure about practice. But know that drifting off is okay. We just patiently pull ourselves back to the breath over and over again.

Once upon a time, there was an old man who used to go to the ocean to write. He had a habit of walking on the beach every morning before beginning work. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see, stretching in both directions.

Off in the distance, the old man noticed a small boy approaching. As the boy walked, he paused every so often, and as he grew closer, the man could see that he was occasionally bending down to pick up an object and throw it into the sea. The boy came closer still, and the man called out, “Good morning! May I ask what you are doing?”

The young boy paused, looked up, and replied, “Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach, and they can’t return to the sea by themselves,” the youth replied. “When the sun gets high, they will die, unless I throw them back into the water.”

The old man replied, “But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t really be able to make much of a difference.”

The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, “It made a difference to that one!”

Moral of the Story

Sometimes, it feels like our life is in disarray, as though all that matters to us is being scattered into pieces. We are overwhelmed by the many things that need fixing, and it feels like a single step forward couldn’t possibly make a difference. But we mustn’t fall into inaction. Each small step forward matters. Each small action is progress.