Recently I’ve been thinking about running. There have been a couple of times in the last few years when I have done the Couch to 5K programme. I ran for a few months before letting it slip.
And then I got covid-19 and my energy hasn’t been the same since.
However, despite the fatigue I’ve suffered this year, I am getting much stronger. A couple of nights ago on my post-dinner walk around the block, I thought – what if I can run?
I broke into a slow jog and continued for another minute. It felt AMAZING. It was as if my lungs were saying, at last, you’re using us!
It’s important that I don’t over do it, as this could dump me straight back into disabling fatigue.
But that thought keeps buzzing through my mind – what if I can?
Then I started thinking about other things
What if I can work through a plotting exercise with my current novel in progress and know what it is really about?
What if I can then get a draft written in three months?
What if I can increase my free and paid subscribers?
“What if I can” leads to many possibilities
It allows you to try.
It doesn’t guarantee success but rather than focus on failure, which we are more wired towards, it opens the door that something just might be possible. Eventually.
Then I thought about you and your writing.
What if you can…?
What if you can finish your current work-in-progress rather than abandon it for a shiny new idea?
What if you can find twenty minutes a day to write even though you have a lot going on?
What if you can break through your fear and procrastination and actually write about how you beat stage four cancer and lived to tell the tale?
What if you can start a newsletter and write a weekly article?
What if you can begin a podcast?
As we approach the end of the year, and start making plans for next year, what if you can make significant progress in your most deeply felt, creative goal?
It’s going to be my motto for 2023
My motto for 2022 has been “let’s try it and see what happens.” Everything has been an experiment.
I’ve decided that for 2023, my motto will be “What if I can.”
And the running? The first week of the Couch to 5K programme is eight lots of one-minute runs with walking in between. I think eight might be too ambitious to start, but what if I can do two or four?
Now I’d love to hear from you
How would you love to apply “What if I can?” to your writing or other goals? Please share. It might be just the impetus you need to get started.
Plodding (or slowly jogging) gently
Cali xx
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One Mindset Shift Could Lead To A Bonanza Of Possibilities
Hi Cali. I’m catching up with this one very late BUT ALL POWER TO YOU !
I know they setting out on a run is a string of challenges over come and seeing it thay way has allowed me to sustain it. Victory 1- bed to bathroom. Victory 2 - bathroom to kitchen. Victory 3 - kitchen to shoe cabinet. Victory 4 - shoe cabinet to road...
All the very best.
What if I can...combine my passion for running with my passion for writing? What if I go for a generative run, return to my desk and let the writing flow? (NB: this actually happens daily and is often overwhelming).