On vacation with my family, my brother in laws’s girlfriend woke up every day to run four miles.
Inspired, I wanted to try.
But my cardio routine has been lacking. I workout everyday but I only do yoga and weightlifting. So running 4 miles all at once may have been too much.
At 9 minutes, my knees started hurting. In order to avoid injury, I renegotiated. It isn’t worth sticking to a commitment to myself if the commitment holds me back in the long run. So instead I ran one mile.
I went into this challenge not knowing if I could accomplish it. So I kept myself open to renegotiations. I don’t break commitments to myself, I renegotiate them. This is what David Allen recommended in this podcast episode of the Tim Ferris Show.
One more second trick
While running I kept trying to commit to small sprints. I would say, just sprint for two minutes then you can slow down.
But those two minutes would feel so long. I just wanted to stop. Then I discovered a trick: If I only commit to one more second of a sprint, then I could run for a while and not dread it. It’s a mental trick for living in the moment. A second is far closer measurement of the present moment than two minutes.
I wonder if I can commit to living in the moment for two minutes?