What is your Marathon? (How to be your own Mr. Miyagi)

Today, let us talk about marathons.
And discipline.
But, mostly marathons.
(Hint: it is a metaphor)

So I have taken up long distance running.
Again.
No accounting for it.
Mostly because I hate running.
Absolutely despise it.
With every fiber of my being.

Thing is, I am pretty good at it.
I wake up, I walk outside, start jogging, and a couple miles later I am back at my house.
Feeling great.
What happened?

Does this make me a runner?
Not exactly.
(Refer back to the hatred).

The real crux of the matter is I need something to do.
And running never seemed like something to do.
Barney Stinson said it the best:

"How to run a marathon. Step one you start running...there is no step two."

-Barney Stinson

And in all his glorious suit glory he is right.
You put on your running shoes and you just frigging do it.
Thing is there are actual steps to progress.
Barney pays for his hubris later in the episode with spontaneous muscle death:

Okay he doesn't, but it is a real thing:
Crossfit's Dirty Little Secret is the name of this blog post where apparently Rhabdomyolysis results from extreme physical exertion.
(not the subject of this post, just a fun tidbit/find on the interwebs)

So why did Barney fail?
Because he didn't train.
And that is a huge part of anything: receiving specialized/adequate training in order to accomplish your goals.

Now, here is my problem with running:
Running is training, it is not the end goal.
Why do we run?

• As a species it is more effective to chase our food than walk slowly behind it
• As a culture, it is one of the most common and easiest forms of exercise
• As a person, I run because reasons

And that was it for years...I had no guiding reason to run.

I ran because it was something to do.

I would have weeks, even months of consistent work outs.

And suddenly I would stop.

I think the biggest thing about it is because I saw it as the end result.

I confused the training with the marathon.

In truth, I have always dreamed of running marathons.

But, I couldn't see a clear way to do it.

So I just ran, instead of setting up a clear and easy training regimen to follow.

I think I picked it up in school.

I find schools/training vocations tend to start with the third point and sometimes get to the second.

So they will start by training learning artists and then give them reasonable expectations.

But, what about the big stuff?

Opening a theatre? Publishing like Neil Gaiman? Being happy?

Whatever happened to mentors and trainers?

Like Mr. Miyagi? King Kai? Obi-Wan?

As an artist I have searched for a mentor like them for most of my career and often came up short.

So here is a simple way to get started on kicking your ass the way Miyagi does:

1. Set a goal. Any goal. It doesn't even have to be a good one, just make it tangible. Run a marathon. Write a book. Paint a portrait. Illustrate a children's book. Whatever
2. Set realistic guide posts.  That daunting marathon is really big when you try to tackle it at once, so work towards it by setting simple, minor increases over a length of time. The best part? You get to decide how quickly you achieve your goal.
3. Start running. This is the training bit. This is often where people start and then try to work towards points one and two. If you are like me, starting here is the easiest and fastest way to burn out on a goal. 

Why does this work?

Because it is every single fight film you have ever seen:

1. Runt gets beat up by big bad guy and wants revenge. Sets goal to beat big bad guy.
2. Meets mentor willing to train him, who tells him he has a finite time in which to do it and it will be really, really, super, duper hard
3. Runt works really, really, really super duper hard and gets promoted to badass level by kicking bad guy in the teeth. (grudging respect/lifetime vendetta ensues)

Only through training are you able to reach a seemingly unattainable goal.

It is in every movie.

We all love training montages:

So why do we work so hard against them in real life?

I think that has to do with the fact that we don't set up something to train for.

And that makes a world of difference.

Having a goal/dream to fight for is the most essential key to starting your training.

If you have that, your Miyagi will show up.

It may just be you.

But, then again, it is always the protagonist who struggles.

You don't see Miyagi jumping in the ring when it gets tough, do you?