Sacrifice, Pursuit, Determination

I had a really good conversation with a colleague David Truss last night, which has inspired this post. We shared about education, leadership, and our passion for learning; and although we obviously have things in common, our paths have not been the same and our processes are unique. We have in common making a change in life to focus on health and well-being; and this involves getting up early many days, exercising, checking Twitter, and blogging among other things. Sometimes you don't truly appreciate the changes you have even made for yourself until you connect with someone who shares a similar, albeit different journey. I was inspired through our conversation and my own reflection at how the trajectory of one's life can change, and change rapidly within short time.

I was curious as we talked about our rhythms and patterns, which respectively fuel our writing. Often my writing is inspired and filtered by my running. If you have read some of my other writing you might not be shocked by this! Often for me it's a stream of consciousness after I've been in my happy place alone with my thoughts. Actually this has always been a part of my process, I just didn't explicitly say it early on in my blog posts, but it was there. Then there was a huge gap in time when I wasn't blogging. You know why? I wasn't running and I also wasn't very healthy in my body and in my habits. When I run, I think and I filter ideas that have been loosely floating on the edge of my mind. When I run, I zone in on what's important and I start to form images, like a photo slide-show, in my mind and then begin to thread the ideas together. This is why when I used to present a lot to other educators, I would build slides of photos and I would build my ideas around them. For awhile I had to convert my slides to a QuickTime presentation file because I wanted to keep the formatting I had built in another program, but in doing so I lost the ability to see the order of the slides like you would in a power-point presentation. So this meant I had to memorized all my slides in order, and sometimes I was doing an hour or even longer presentation; but it was easy because the images were all I needed to remember the concepts and ideas.  I wouldn't say I have a photographic memory, but it is how I find a lot of things that are misplaced around the house or school!

Creating imagery is one of the most powerful tools of the imagination that I use to connect with my thinking. I actually wrote some of my best (I consider my best) graduate papers by starting with an image in my mind or even drawing or creating some art. So sometimes this is how my posts begin-with an image. Dave shared about how often the 'title' of his posts inspires his writing...so I thought I would try it out! "Sacrifice, Pursuit, Determination" is the title of this post. This is how I started today! I will now relate it to my morning run, otherwise you might be disappointed, right!? :)
I didn't want to get up again. My body was a bit sore. It had been a long day the day before. The first kilometer on the treadmill this morning was hard! I didn't want to do it, but the goal was ahead and it required SACRIFICE. So I kept going and the second kilometer was even harder, but I went on. It would have been easier to pack it in and go back to bed. As I continued into the third and fourth kilometers my mindset shifted into the PURSUIT of my goals. It's more than just this run though, it's about my entire journey. I start to think then about what I am after and what I need to continue to do, or even do differently to get to where I want to be. Then comes DETERMINATION. Although this could equally be the first word, I recognize that I need this mindset to continue on when things get tough and I feel like giving up. The final kilometer is often faster for me when I run, but it's always the hardest. There are plenty of reasons to say "good enough" or "that will do", but when I stay focused I reach beyond what I thought I could when I started out.

It's not just about a 5KM run, it's about my health, it's about my career, it's about the people in my life who encourage me and make me better, and who are worth the sacrifice, pursuit and determination to get better and be better. They deserve it and I deserve it, and so do you! This was a different process today for me in my writing, but I quite liked it! Thanks @datruss for connecting with me and offering me another way to imagine and think!