The Day it Becomes Easier to Take Action Than to Wait
Fellow Riskologist,
Greetings from rural Nevada, where I’m hanging out for a few days before heading into the mountains for a little backpacking trip.
This morning, I woke up and went for a run. Let me tell ya, running in rural Nevada is a bit different from running around my home in SE Portland. There were big trucks on the road about to flatten me. I got chased by a few scary dogs. I had to take a little detour through a hay field and cow pasture. And it was hot! My goodness, the heat!
As I ran, I asked myself, “Why the hell am I out here doing this?”
I’m technically on vacation; I could just let myself sit around all morning drinking coffee. To most people, that would probably seem easier. But for me, it’s actually a lot harder to sit around than to get up and run.
With very few exceptions for illness and injury, I’ve run three days a week for five years now. When you do something consistently for that long, it becomes a part of you. It’s ingrained into who you are.
I went for a run this morning because it’s easier for me to get up and go for a run than it is to skip out. I know that if I don’t go, I’ll just think about it all day long. I’ll regret it, and I’ll beat myself up about it.
Even more, I know that if I don’t go too many days in a row, it’ll eventually become easier to sit around. I don’t want that to happen, so I keep the streak going as much as possible.
The result? In a few months, I’ll have completed a marathon on every continent in the world (more on this in a future update).
I’m hardly the only one to have discovered the secret of consistency. In fact, I learned it myself from friends like Steve Kamb over at Nerd Fitness who transformed his body by finding new and fun ways to exercise and James Clear who taught me the importance of identity based habits.
The secret to everything, of course, is just getting started.
When I started running in 2008, I didn’t worry about how far I could go. I was fat and out of shape; I didn’t know how far I could go. Instead, I just put a calendar on the fridge and marked each day I went for a run with an X. The goal was to get three Xs every week.
Once I had a few weeks full of Xs, I didn’t want to stop. I was addicted. “Don’t break the streak!” I would tell myself.
Sure, at first it was a little tough. I was juggling a 60-hour work week, going to class at night, and trying to make time for a relationship. But I knew I wanted it. I knew I needed to prove to myself that I could do it. The calendar and all its Xs helped.
Today, I need no calendar. Today, I wake up in the hot sun in rural Nevada, roll out of bed, and put on my running shoes. Why? Because it’s easier to do that than it is not to.
If something important to you is hard today, don’t worry. Don’t complain. Most importantly, don’t avoid it. Instead, do it tomorrow.
Soon, you’ll wake up and realize something has changed. The new you won’t be able to fathom not doing the thing you could hardly imagine yourself doing at all just a little while ago. You might even have difficulty remembering how it all started.
When that happens, you’ll know that a new, better you has emerged.
Yours in risk-taking,
Tyler Tervooren
Founder, Riskology.co