The 106th Edition

I’ve been thinking a lot about the word enough, and whether ambitious people ever really allow themselves to feel it.

Something to Think About

There is a difference between believing you have enough and believing you are enough.

Something to Ask Yourself

If you achieved every running goal you currently have, would you finally feel enough, or would the feeling simply move to the next target?

Personal Lesson

For a long time, I unknowingly attached my self worth to what I was achieving.

If my training and racing was going well, I felt confident. If my content was growing, I felt relevant. If the podcast was reaching more people, I felt like things were moving in the right direction. And I still sometimes feel like this.

But as sad as it is to admit, with that perspective, whenever one of those things slowed down (as inevitably does – such is the eb and flow of life), I noticed my opinion of myself slowed down with it.

It’s strange when you recognise that your confidence isn’t actually coming from within but only from external evidence.

When you attach your self worth to external things like the success of your business, your content, your race results, your sense of who you are becomes incredibly fragile. It’s fundamentally built on things you can’t completely control.

I still have, and hope to always have, huge ambitions.

I want That’s Runnable to reach millions of people. I want to run races that scare me, to build a business that allows me to spend my life helping others.

None of that has changed. But what has changed a bit – and something I continue to work on – is the foundation beneath it.

I don’t want to spend the next thirty years believing happiness is always waiting on the other side of the next achievement.

I want to chase those goals because they’re exciting, not because I believe they’ll complete me.

Running – Life’s Metaphor

As a runner, you risk convincing yourself that fulfilment is one finish line away.

Then we cross it and immediately start searching for the next race.

Life works exactly the same way.

Goals give us direction.

But they should never determine our value.

Final Thoughts

Ambition is a great thing.

It encourages us to look after ourselves and asks us to become more disciplined, resilient and capable.

I would never encourage anyone to stop being ambitious.

But ambition becomes dangerous when it convinces us that our value is permanently deferred.

That we’ll finally be worthy when we achieve whatever goal we’re chasing.

Two opposing things can be true at the same time. This dialectic truth is something I believe you must embrace.

You can be both deeply grateful for where you are and deeply committed to where you’re going. Those ideas don’t compete with one another.

In fact, I think they strengthen and compliment each other.

When you stop running from inadequacy, you’re finally free to run towards possibility.

So keep chasing your goals, training hard and building the life you want.

Just don’t wait until you arrive to decide that you’re enough.

You already are.

RUN THE RUNNABLE 😉