How To Eat An Elephant

I remember being in elementary school and having to run “the mile” for our physical fitness test. I remember thinking “a mile?! How can they do that to children??” I dreaded it every year. I remember trying and not being able to catch my breath having to walk parts of it. Not my proudest moment. Needless to say, when I was younger, I was not what anyone would deem an athlete. 

I did play sports growing up and I’m grateful I did because they taught me a lot. They taught me about teamwork, sportsmanship, being a good winner, (even more importantly, being a good loser) and cheering on your teammates. When your teammates succeeded, you succeeded. When your teammates had a rough day, you still cheered them on. My dad helped coach a lot of my teams and he had zero tolerance for poor sportsmanship, none more so than when it was coming from his own children. If I sulked, got angry, etc, he was there to pull me aside and tell me I was letting my team down with my attitude. Oof. A lesson I have carried with me throughout my life. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.

Sports was never something I was competitive at, probably because I was not gifted athletically, so I never understood the point of pushing myself in that arena. I called a spade a spade and put my energy elsewhere, like watching reruns of Saved By The Bell after school. If there was an award for that, I would have come in first.

There were, however, strange things I was competitive about. I remember every summer I had an aunt and uncle who would invite family to their lake house for the day. We would go tubing off the back of their boat. There was a bit of an unspoken competition of who could last the longest on the tube. The “contestants” were me, my brother, and four of my very athletic male cousins. Due to sheer determination and no regard for personal injury (thankfully, my mother was never a spectator on the boat), I always held on the longest. My forearms and the rest of my body felt like they got hit by a MAC truck for the days following, but the glory was worth every ache and pain.

 In addition to not being athletic, I also was not someone who ever considered myself talented, in general. I had some very gifted kids in my class – gifted athletically (I went to highschool with Matt Bonner who went on to play in the NBA), artistically, theatrically and academically. At best, I considered myself average.

 Every year, my highschool hosted a talent show. Not being a talented nor an overly outgoing kid, I had zero intention of having any level of participation in the show other than being a spectator. I was at a team practice one afternoon and I don’t even remember how it happened, but I found myself in a pushup contest with a friend on the football team after we had all finished our practices for the day. I had managed to squeak out 50 pushups and beat him. How I did that, is anyone’s guess, but the only thing I can think of is having the same determination I had when holding onto that tube behind my uncle’s boat. I entered myself in the talent show and did my 50 pushups again. 

Not a groundbreaking talent by any stretch and I certainly didn’t bring home any prizes that night. But, while it sounds ridiculous, for someone who had always been average athletically, this was a big deal for me and a pivotal moment in my life teaching me (inadvertently) about goal setting.

If I could do 50 pushups, I could run a mile. I went on to set a goal of running a mile without stopping to walk. I remember the day I did it. You would have thought I discovered my first dessert, I was so excited. Then I went on to set a goal to run two… and then three… and eventually I was able to go out and run a half marathon. I never have run a full marathon and frankly, I have zero desire to do it. I have so much respect for people who have. 

I have even more respect for the people who aren’t natural athletes or natural anything for that matter, set a goal – no matter how small – and crush. And set another goal and crush and set and crush and set and crush and on and on and on. Those are the people who inspire me, because I know how hard it is to start at ground zero and build and build and build.  
When I have friends who just start running and they tell me “I could only do half a mile this morning”, I am filled with so much pride for them, because that is how you start. That’s how you accomplish anything. “The Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with One Step” – Lao Tzu

The key is to keep going.

Will you stumble? Sure. Will you have setbacks? Most likely. Will people laugh at you and tell you you can’t? Yep.

Fuck them. Keep. Going. 

I can’t tell you the number of times I have failed in my life. Fallen on my face over and over and over. Been laughed at. Doubted (both by myself and others), but there has always been a voice in my head that wanted to not only prove others wrong, but myself, as well. 

As the chinese proverb goes “Fall down seven times, get up eight.”

That same girl who couldn’t run a mile without stopping also set a goal 20 years later to do a bodybuilding competition and came in second place. Then did another one a year later and not only won, but got her pro card in bodybuilding.

There’s only one way to eat an elephant:

One bite at a time.