Friday, October 19, 2007

My Big 2007 'Aha' Moment

When we were thinking of how to name the store, we had a long list of possible names, but none of them 'felt right.'

One morning, Eric blurted out (with cereal still in his mouth) 'the balanced athlete.' And that was it. It was settled, it was a great start. But, it took me some time to really believe in the name.

At the time, we both had very busy schedules (and of course, we still do). Sometimes I felt very frustrated because I could hardly fit running into my life. I would skimp on sleeping to get up early in the morning to go for a run. If I had planned a long run, but something else came up that prevented me from it, I became moody and miserable for the rest of the day.

I am not sure of when it happened, but at some point during 2007 (maybe when we were dealing with the newly opened store, I changed jobs, we were planning a wedding, and we moved to a new house), I discovered a great concept: mold your running to your life, and not your life to your running. That was a big 'aha' moment for me, believe it or not.

There is nothing in life that is guaranteed, except for change...and death (which in itself is change). Change brings growth, lack of change brings stagnation. Once I accepted these facts, the only logical conclusion was that you can't resist change. So, every aspect of your life needs to mold to the current circumstances. And what drives most of us crazy is that change can arrive in any form, at any time, and in most cases, when you least need it, expect it, or want it.

Another fact that led me to my big 'aha', was to discover that I am not super-human. I need to sleep, I need to relax, I need to rest, and I need to enjoy my journey. So....I put one and one together, and I told Eric: "You know, you really had an enlightened moment when you named the store...it is really all about balance, even if it sounds cliched."

Thanks to these huge leaps in reasoning, I decided that 2008 is going to be the half-marathon year for me. I started a part time MS degree, so I cannot keep running the same amount of time per week. And I feel perfectly content with this. I am looking forward to working on my form and my speed for this distance. Every distance presents you with a different kind of challenge.

I am sure that for some of you, my big 'aha' of 2007 is a big 'duh!', so I apologize for that. However, I see my old self in many of you. The more balanced your life is, the more you are going to enjoy running. It takes time to change your mindset, and sometimes, only change will force you to change your mindset (it did for me).

So there you go, that's my bit of wisdom for the day. What's yours? How do you balance your life? For those of you with kids, (I can't wait :-), how do you do it?

-i

1 comment:

wendy said...

I love the name of the store, and I think you're right. As much as I want to run another marathon, it's not that feasible with my current schedule, and I want a year to enjoy my running, not feel like it's work. I love the idea of running 1/2 marathons because it still gets me out the door a few times a week, but my long runs are 2 hours, not 4. That's a big difference when you're crunched for time!

Good for you to make a goal that includes some rest time for you!

I know I have to plan meticulously with a schedule so I can get everything done I need to, some of the things I want to, and not want to hurt anyone at the end of the day. ;-)