A Long Walk

I've been known to say that our careers are much like running a marathon, because just like a marathon, being 26.2 miles, a career of 26.2 years (and more) is no matter how you add it up, long. And we don't really run our careers, we more walk them through and do the best we can to keep at it when the hills are in front of us, when we are in the valleys and when the long, unbending road in front of us seems only to end where our eyes can't see any further. This is our career. It's a long walk for all of us regardless of what our careers are and how many changes we have along the way. And in some years, like this one, I know of many people who have felt like it has taken all they have to just keep one foot in front of the other.

My favorite movie of all time is Lawrence of Arabia. I don't know why, but some of the scenes in the desert and the long journeys that they take in that movie have always stuck with me. Maybe because the movie is so long too, I don't know, but I know that I have felt on more than one occasion that like the movie, the future was nothing but a mirage on the horizon and that there couldn't possibly be that much distance between here and there.

One foot in front of the other has been a mantra for me on more than one job and one part of my career. Our careers are long walks that if we don't know where we are going and why, it can for many days, weeks, months or years, seem intolerable.

But, if we know why and where we ultimately want to achieve then each step is forward for a purpose.

100 Business Days Out: Day 17 - Conditioning

A common question I am getting now is “are you running/working out a lot in all of your free time”? The answer, by the way, is yes. But, what I find fascinating about the question is that there seems to be a built-in expectation that when someone doesn’t have to go to work everyday that they should be in the gym a couple of hours a day and that this must be the period that you get in the best shape of your life. What I have found is that the question usually is rooted in the person who is asking and projecting themselves and their desires on you when they pose the query. It’s almost like if you were to answer, “Not really, in fact I am spending most of my extra time drinking and eating and I’m gaining lots of weight”, that you would be doubly failing. Failing yourself and failing them. There are lots of stories of first time marathons, triathlons, mountain climbs, etc., coming from those who are on “sabbatical”. I will admit that the same thoughts have gone through my own mind. At least in me some of that has to do with the need for goals and objectives to strive for, reach and exceed. And at the same time, get into better and better shape, so that when you see someone for the first time since you quit working that you get., “wow, you look great…10 years younger…all that exercise and sleep is treating you well”. Didn’t I write about self-worth once before? :)