The 109th Edition

The moment you take responsibility for your training is the moment you begin to understand what you are truly capable of

Something to Think About

A good teacher can create the conditions for learning, but the student must turn those conditions into results.

Something to Ask Yourself

Where are you waiting for someone else to solve a problem that you are capable of taking responsibility for yourself?

Personal Lesson

As a coach, I can make training easy to follow. I can provide a program, educational resources, video instructions for every gym exercise, mobility sessions to follow, training tips and direct access to me whenever someone needs guidance. I can explain what to do, why they’re doing it and how each part contributes to the bigger picture.

I can remove much of the confusion, but there’s one thing I can’t remove:

the athlete’s responsibility.

I can’t decide when their training will fit around their life. I can’t put their phone down for them, organise their calendar or make them start the session they’ve been procrastinating over. I can’t produce the effort on their behalf. 

Even when it comes to rest, I can offer guidance, but unfortunately the athlete must develop enough awareness to recognise when their body needs to recover. 

A good coach will do everything in their power to help with every part of this. This is why many coaches complain that they’re “not a life coach”.

As you might know by now, I like helping people with all the other stuff too. I consider my athletes people first, runners second. That means, I do hold some responsibility to help each individual and make the hard stuff easier. That’s ultimately my job.

But, as they say, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.”

A wise boss once told me that a person’s success is determined by how much they can handle and keep moving. 

That’s stayed with me for about 10 years, although I now understand that handling more doesn’t mean silently carrying everything alone. It means learning what must be faced, what can be delegated, what needs to be discussed and what can wait. It means asking for help, accepting feedback and managing stress intelligently. 

Taking responsibility is not about doing everything yourself, but it is about accepting that much of what’s happening in your life is ultimately your responsibility to handle.

Running – Life’s Metaphor

Training makes the relationship between responsibility and results difficult to ignore. Nobody else can complete your repetitions, run your miles or make the daily decisions that allow you to recover and improve.

Life works in much the same way. Other people can teach, support and encourage you, but they can’t live deliberately on your behalf.

Final Thoughts

It’s tempting to believe that our circumstances are the only thing holding us back. 

We tell ourselves that we don’t have enough time, that our program isn’t perfect or that life needs to become easier before we can become more consistent. 

Sometimes our circumstances genuinely are difficult, but responsibility begins when we stop asking whether the circumstances are fair and start asking what remains within our control.

There will always be people capable of handling more than you can currently handle. 

That doesn’t mean they were born with a greater capacity for life. Capacity can be built and developed.

Through years of practice, reflection and difficult decisions, people become more organised, more resilient and more capable of rising to demanding occasions. 

You may not reach their level overnight, but it’s not impossible for you to get there.

This isn’t me having a go at people who don’t take responsibility over their training (although I do see a lot of that).

No, I believe taking responsibility is quite literally the KEY to success in your life. It is refusing to let go of a part of you that I believe every human being needs to thrive.

It means refusing to surrender your agency. 

(I could write a whole Weekly Reframe on Agency itself – it is a powerful thing imbedded in almost everything I love about running).

Taking responsibility means looking honestly at your habits, your procrastination, your wasted time and the excuses you repeatedly reach for. People who remain stuck tend to collect reasons why something can’t be done. People who progress begin searching for solutions.

Your coach can guide you, your program can provide structure, the people around you can support you, even those who you’ve paid for support – therapists, mentors and others. 

But sooner or later, you have to do the work. Take responsibility for your time, your effort, your recovery and the decisions you make when nobody’s watching. 

Your training belongs to you, and that is truly a gift. 

Because when you take responsibility, you learn, you give yourself agency, and you become more than you are today.

RUN THE RUNNABLE 😉