By Dana Ayers
One thing I’ve learned in life is sometimes you have to stop focusing on what you’re doing; instead fixate on why you’re doing it. The why can carry you through the what, but it’s not always easy.
If you’ve ever had your eyebrows waxed, this will make sense. Sure, you could focus on the fact that you’re paying someone to pour hot, sticky liquid near your eyeballs and then rip that substance off with a cloth like the world’s most sadistic Band-Aid. But, if we all focused on that, waxing would be obsolete. So why do we do it? Because we focus on the why instead of the what. (The why being that eyebrows are important, and they really do look better when there are two of them.)
This “remembering-the-why” trick works especially well for fitness goals. If there’s one thing about running I can count on, it’s that at some point I’m going to struggle; especially as a slow runner. Either I struggle to get going or I struggle to keep going. I’ve learned that one of the best things I can do when I struggle is to stop thinking about what I’m doing, and refocus on why I’m doing it.
Sometimes my why is obvious, for example when I run for specific causes. There are so many options out there to find this why. You can connect with running apps or races that donate money to charities. You can run a race in honor of a loved one.
You can also raise money for causes through race training like I did for a marathon in 2010. I chose to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in return for the group’s Team in Training race prep program. The cancer research I was helping to fund provided a great why for me to run — and that why came in handy over the next five months.
Training for that marathon wasn’t easy. It wasn’t easy when I had to get out of bed early every Saturday during one of D.C.’s “snowpocalyptic” winters. It wasn’t easy when it rained every minute of my 18-miler and I made the unfortunate discovery that my washing machine hadn’t properly rinsed my jacket, leaving my arms covered in bubbles that were difficult to explain to my teammates. And it definitely wasn’t easy when I ripped open the upper inside seam of my pants 13 miles into a 20-miler and had to run seven miles with a gaping hole in an unfortunate location on my leg. (That ended up being totally worth the story later, but still, not easy. A bit embarrassing…and there was chafing involved.)
But through all that, I could keep going because I could focus on why I run. I remembered the stories of cancer patients benefitting from treatments we were funding. I would look over and see a teammate training for a race while going through cancer treatment himself. Embarrassing pant leg mishaps seem much less dramatic in comparison. I stopped whining about what I was doing and remember why I should do it.
Even if I’m not running specifically for a cause, I still use whys to keep going. When I feel lazy, I’ll think of people in my life that can’t run like they used to; friends with heart disease, accident victims left paralyzed, veterans who lost their legs in combat. I focus on how fortunate I am to be able to run with my body just as it is, and that becomes why I run in that moment. Because it’s a gift that I don’t want to take for granted.
At times I’ve literally carried my why on my back. The shirt I wore in my marathon had been signed by a few of my friends. When I got tired, I thought of their names back there, pushing me on. That why helped me get through what I was doing (for five…and a half… hours… because that’s how long it took me to finish my marathon.)
Maybe the most important why is ourselves. Remembering the dreams we have: to take control of our health, to prove something to ourselves, or maybe just to fit in our old jeans. Whatever it is, sometimes we have to be our own cause and keep that in mind when we struggle.
Whatever it is you need to do – be it taming a stubborn uni-brow, or getting that workout in – get through the what by finding your why.
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Dana Ayers is the author of the #1 Best Seller “Confessions of an Unlikely Runner (A Guide to Racing and Obstacle Courses for the Averagely Fit and Halfway Dedicated).” Dana accidentally became a runner over 10 years ago and has logged a vast array of average finish times since. She is a former White House staffer, and current military reservist.
