Choose The Hill — Run in the Rain
You are on a run and come up to a hill, you have two options:
- Choose to follow the path up the hill and over to the other side
- Choose to follow another path that avoids the hill and takes you to the other side
This is a very contextual question but let me explain the physics behind why option 1 is the best choice.
Option 1, going up the hill, is the most difficult of the options. Choosing the most difficult option when it is not necessary requires a lot of discipline-driven behavior. This means that your decision was intentional (you chose to do this), purposeful (you have and know your reason for doing this), and skillful (you are in the moment, engaged in the task at hand). Even if it is a planned easy run, as long as you keep your heart rate in your “easy zone”, Option 1 is the best option for you and your future.
By CHOOSING to run up the hill, you are deliberately challenging yourself. The keyword being “choosing”. You have to make the choice to not take the easy route. Nobody else can make this choice and follow through with it for you.
The more times you choose to challenge yourself, the more practice you get with these uncomfortable situations (as obvious as this sounds). By giving yourself repetitions with acting with discipline-driven behavior, the more opportunity you have to make this a habit and thus a strength.
Consistently and repeatedly choosing to go the difficult and unpopular route when it is not necessary is the best preparation for challenges in life when it really does matter. Because you have deliberately practiced self-discipline when it was not required, you are that much more prepared when life does require you to act with self-discipline. Everything is training for something.
To do what others can’t, you must consistently and repeatedly do what others don’t. By daily doing things/acting exceptionally differently than the majority, you thus make yourself extraordinary and in the minority. Consistently repeated, this purposeful extraordinary behavior creates the habit of excellence. Talent is a gift, Greatness is a choice.
In simpler terms, (thousands of year ago) Aristotle said:
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
“There is nothing more powerful than a good habit. Nothing that holds us back quite like a bad habit. We are what we do. What we do determines who we can be.
As Epictetus would later say, “capability is confirmed and grows in its corresponding actions, walking by walking, and running by running… therefore, if you want to do something, make a habit of it.” Excellence isn’t this thing you do one time. It’s a way of living. It’s foundational. It’s like an operating system and the code this system operates on is habit.”
Building off of this, how do you make discipline-driven behavior a habit and skill?
- It begins with figuring out your who and why. Who do you want to become and what are your reasons for this? Begin with the end in mind. What is your desired identity/outcome? The clearer you are with this end vision, the easier it will be to focus in the moment. Don’t call it a dream, call it a plan.
- Surround yourself with those in your life who have already made this type of behavior expected and routine. The more hill runners you surround yourself with, the more likely you are to engage in that type of behavior as well. If that is what all of your friends are doing, then naturally you will want to partake as well. “You are the average of the 5 people you hang around the most.”- Jim Rohn
- Identify a role model(s) and Imitate and then Emulate. What do they do that makes them extraordinary? Why are they special? Repeat those desired qualities and behaviors so that they become a habit of yours. “Don’t envy what people have, emulate what they did to have it.”- Tim Fargo
- “Be as you wish to seem.”- Socrates. Let your desired identity, how you want to be viewed and interpreted by those around you, lead and guide you. Actions Express Priorities.
- Consistently Repeated Purposeful Practice Makes Perfect. Figure out what you want, the necessary and required steps, and then execute. What you will become is a result of what you are willing to endure.
This is similar to running in the rain. Do you choose not to run, shorten your run, or continue on as planned?
Choose the Hill — Run in the Rain
