Setting Birthday Goals instead of Making Birthday Wishes
In recent years, I have started using birthdays as deadlines for achieving big goals. Last year, I ran my first half marathon. As an athlete growing up, distance running was my mortal enemy. Running wasn’t fun, playing basketball and running a soccer field was fun. Running was boring and painful. I couldn’t figure out pacing or how to breathe without getting a stitch in my side. Building the stamina it took to run long distances felt too hard and unpleasant. And so I didn’t. Over the years, I half-heartedly tried and failed at becoming a runner a number of times while I was searching for my athletic identity as an adult.
Fast forward to season one of the global pandemic. We were home. Home all the time. Home all the time with the same people. We were trying to figure out home schooling and getting groceries (and wiping down those groceries with sanitizing wipes…). We were too anxious to leave the house. Too anxious to spend time with friends in person, and mostly too burnt out for another Zoom happy hour. I needed exercise because it helped me think and feel better (and boy, did I need to feel better), but going into the gym wasn’t happening and adding to my paltry home gym at the time wasn’t a possibility due to supply chain issues. Enter running. Again…
Could it be any different this time? Yes, because it can always be different. I was different and so were my circumstances. First, I had a dog (a just pre-pandemic pup) who loved to exercise and took to running like a duck to water. She was most excited on the days she saw me stretching for our runs. Second, running was one of the rare times that I had space alone for thinking or sometimes not thinking. Third, I reset my expectations on what it meant to be “a runner” and started small. I started with a slow pace and shorter distances, breaking up running intervals with walking. Gradually, it got easier. I could run longer distances. I needed fewer walk breaks. 5K, then 5 miles, then 10K. Then I decided I was going to train for the 13.1 mile half marathon distance and that I wanted to run it for my next birthday in January 2021.
During that training season, my Dad got sick. Really sick. And instead of giving up running, I didn’t… While during that time, we all felt like we couldn’t help my Dad, I could control my running. So I did. I took him to doctor’s appointments and then I ran. I called his medical team and then I ran. I brought him to the hospital and then I ran. We received his terminal cancer diagnosis and then I ran. I called my friends for support and to cry and rage and then I ran. Many times I felt that I was quite literally running away from my problems. While everything else felt like it was spiraling out of control and we were dealing with the weight of our grief as a family, I stuck to my training because it felt good to be able to achieve something even when everything else felt so awful.
So on January 17, I completed my 13.1 mile journey (with my trusty runner dog) and 11 days later, my father passed away. 2021 wasn’t any kinder or easier than 2020. We lived through what felt like year 100 of the pandemic. I faced the unpleasant realization that simply bending over could be enough to throw out my back. I grieved. But I remembered that having a goal I was working to accomplish gave me focus and a respite from the things in life that felt chaotic and out of control. So I worked to find a new goal and this time I wanted that goal aligned with my professional purpose. What would I do next? I realized the work that resonated throughout my career was helping others find their own paths to success. This realization brought me to professional coaching. I attended the ACT program at Brown University to obtain my leadership and performance coaching certification for the technical skills to better help others turn their goals into action plans. And I set my own goal to launch Crisilid by my next birthday.
And here we are…
So what’s the moral of this story anyway? I suppose it is this: I know what it is like to struggle with where you are and what you are doing. I also know it takes resilience, determination, and the support of others to get you through when things seem too hard. Some may say that my goals weren’t that grand or challenging so completing them was no big deal. But they were MY goals. Comparing my running to Des Linden’s or my new business to a Bain or a Deloitte would be demoralizing and a waste of time. Shifting our perspective on our goals helps us keep them in sight. Moving forward on our own goals means first setting ones that are personal to us and then working to get a little bit better than we were the day before. And avoid comparing your chapter 1 to someone else’s chapter 20.
I don’t know what my next birthday goal will be yet, but I am looking forward to the inspiration. I’d love to hear about yours. And if you would like assistance setting and attaining your next goal, birthday or not, schedule time for a coaching session.
