CHAPTER 9 WHAT IF I DON’T HAVE TIME?
It’s Never Too Late to Set an Audacious Goal
My running story has perhaps the least glamorous start. I never took those first steps with the intention of doing anything spectacular. The first time I went was only because Dan asked me if I’d run with him. I was huffing and puffing that first time and questioning the sanity of runners (and myself for saying yes!). But I kept going, kept lacing up my shoes, kept getting out there. Eventually, I started running races and setting goals. But that first day? I just ran.
I also quit.
Most of the time, I didn’t plan to quit—it just happened. It’s not like there was a date on my calendar that said, “Today is your last day of running for a really, really, really long time. Enjoy!” Rather, it was a day off that led to another day off that led to another day off that led to, well, you get it. Quitting.
Starting up again after quitting isn’t easy. It’s downright hard. There’s the inner monologue of “you quit again” and the physical load of “I can’t breathe and my legs are like lead.” Once I have quit, part of me doesn’t want to deal with the reality of starting over. Again. So I do the next best thing—I wait. Which turns out to be the worst thing! Because now I’m making starting up again even harder. I hate quitting. But I hate even more the parts of me that are willing to quit in the first place.
But is it considered quitting if I start up again? What constitutes actually quitting and isn’t just a pause? I’d mull over these questions on my runs and in my writing, trying to find answers. While I celebrated some places in life where quitting was beneficial—I had quit staying small, had quit staying silent, had quit holding on to things—some of the areas I was quitting weren’t helping me. And I began to realize—quitting hard but necessary things meant I might be compromising on myself.
If I was going to live above the radar—something I was so committed to in so many areas of my life—I needed to determine what allowed me to give myself a pass when I shouldn’t be taking it in the first place. I decided that taking a rest day so my muscles could heal wasn’t a pass, but deciding I just didn’t feel like running was a pass. That “I just don’t feel like it” became my litmus test.
I discovered that this scenario was true in so many other areas of my life. There is so much stuff I don’t feel like doing that still needs to be done. I didn’t feel like dealing with creditors years ago, but it still needed to be done. I don’t feel like cleaning the bathrooms, but come on now, that definitely needs to be done. I don’t feel like doing edits, but even those edits need to be done (if they aren’t, you wouldn’t be reading these words!). Compromise allows us to rationalize the feeling of deserving a break or being too tired. And I had grown sick of my own quick ability to compromise.
The antidote? I changed how I described myself. Instead of describing what I wanted to do, I stated who I would be by doing that action. Instead of “I’m going for a run,” I would say, “I am a runner.” Rather than “I’m going to write a book,” it became “I am an author.” Instead of “I’m going to take care of my health,” I would say, “I am healthy.” That simple reframe helped me realize that I needed to remove the word going from my to-do list and I needed to be the thing I was striving for.
I am running today.
I am writing today.
I am speaking up today.
I am paying the bills today.
I am meeting with a friend today.
I am investing in my story today.
What might this list look like for you? Are there things in your life that you consistently allow yourself a pass on or that you quit again and again? Try to catch yourself using the words “going to” related to some task (“I’m going to make that doctor appointment,” “I’m going to take a walk after dinner”). Then ask yourself why you haven’t done it yet, and make a goal to get it done. “Going to” is the language of someday. Notice I ended each of my “I am” statements with today. You still might feel uneasy trying to define who you want to be, or you might feel you’re not qualified to carry that title, but it’s critical to begin living out who you want to become. If the person you envision yourself to be walks confidently into a boardroom and leads the meeting, that’s your example. If the person you want to become composes music, you need to start defining yourself as a composer. If the person you want to be has her spark back, you need to start defining yourself as the girl on fire. Unstoppable.
SET THE AUDACIOUS GOAL
Even though I had quit so many times, I started running. Again. This time, however, beyond reframing the task and how I defined myself, I added two more things: goals and accountability. I also challenged my own presupposition that the only way I could finish something was if someone else was holding my feet to the fire. Someone holding your feet to the fire goes a step beyond accountability or a check-in. It’s the drill sergeant screaming at Grace to keep going when she wanted to quit. And there’s a place for that (but not at boot camp). Sometimes we need another person screaming at us not to give up when every cell wants to fold. But that isn’t accountability. It’s something more—it’s reliance on someone else to keep you moving or motivated. If you need someone else, especially in the beginning, you can find another person to hold you accountable. That is you taking accountability.
Instead of believing I needed someone else to keep me on track, I wanted the motivator to be me. I wanted to figure out how to push through my own mental drama and finish something because I had the inner fortitude. I had done some really big things—walking into an attorney’s office, signing papers, moving across the country—but I didn’t know how to create that urgency in other spaces in my life. Back then, I was still the queen of procrastination, of slick reasons to wait and other tasks to accomplish. Why couldn’t I do what really mattered to me?
In 2022, I set an audacious running goal with the hopes that I’d overcome my compromising tendencies in the process. The goal had poignancy because the distance was the mileage, 899 miles, between my Nashville home and my parents’ Minneapolis home. Part of me needed to prove to myself that if the world went sideways (the pandemic sure taught me it could), I could run/walk to my parents’ home if I needed to. This goal gave me the chance to practice that first step of debunking the impossible. This was a chance to flip that belief on its head. While it would take me a long time to trek this distance, I knew it was possible.
Goal setting is tricky. We tend to both set goals beyond our scope of self and also set goals that are far too low. When you’re looking at your goals, it’s probably not realistic to put down “Swim around Key West” when you don’t know how to swim. (This is an actual race my husband wants to do. He wants me on the boat to help reapply sunscreen and be on shark lookout duty.) The better starting goal? “Start swimming two laps a day at the YMCA.” Then, when you complete that goal, make a newer, bigger one. Goal setting is leap-frogging up.
But then came the question: If I believed this goal was possible, what was the stall?
In January, I started running. Then I got sick and stopped running. After I was better, and because it was early enough in the year for the goal to still be possible, I started running again. And I kept running. I ran by moms and dads pushing strollers, older couples, people with dogs (I always get way on the other side), and friends as I racked up the miles, clocking in at just under one hundred miles most months. My favorite element of running is that it gives me time, a great deal of time, to think. And during all those minutes and hours, I discovered why I have compromised and stalled so much in the past: I was afraid of commitment.
I hate breaking commitments. It makes me feel like a loser or a failure. So instead of breaking them, I often compromise and never even make the commitments in the first place.
Deadlines have stressed me out since I first learned what a deadline was. I had always assumed that the pressure of the deadline itself was the stressor. What I didn’t understand is that underneath the pressure are those pesky lies of “What if I fail?” and “What if I let someone down?” Because I had begun working through some of these narratives and beliefs in counseling, those lies fell flat. I knew that the only person I’d be letting down by not following through on my running goal was me.
My husband, kids, neighbors, readers, family, and whoever else would survive if I didn’t keep my commitment. I was the one who would be let down if I gave up, and because of that fear, I was terrified to commit. I didn’t want to disappoint myself again.
Disappointing ourselves is an often unspoken-about part of life. It’s easier to deal with not wanting to disappoint others, partially because of the external pressure to keep up with the Joneses. Disappointing ourselves, though, is another matter. It’s a painful shadow story many of us have had to deal with, and it can bring with it shame that we dropped the ball on our own story. Again. One of the best ways to stop letting yourself down is to ask yourself if you’d respond to a friend in the same way you respond to yourself. Would you encourage her to keep trying, even in the hard? Would you help her figure it out, even if she didn’t have answers? Would you tell her you believe in her, even if she doubts? Chances are great that you would. Be the friend to yourself that you would be to others.
As I worked through all of this on the trail one day, tears ran down my face. I realized I didn’t love my own story the way I loved everyone else’s story. I wouldn’t allow myself to forget my failures and so often used those failures to define my potential. My safeguard? I thought I was safe if I sat on the sidelines with a small, doable goal.
In counseling years ago, I learned a way to deal with the parts of our thinking that still have a grip on our present moment. The fear of commitment and disappointing myself was deep-rooted. The years of financial ruin and not finishing college chipped away at my ego. I was embarrassed by my own story and had developed a part of my thinking that would play it safe and oftentimes quit before she started. The technique I learned to break out of this was to thank the mode of thinking that keeps us safe and then to simply say, “I’m no longer there in that moment. I need you to become confident [or whatever you need or want now] and rise to the new me.”
Sometimes we live with the strategies of our earlier selves. It’s like those green shorts all over again, but in this case, the limitation is on our capabilities. Our thought processes are fast, sometimes instantaneous, and unless we challenge those thoughts with one of this book’s theme questions—“Why do you think that to be true?”—an old thought pattern that is no longer useful can influence a now decision. If you want to change, you first must identify the previous line of thinking, be grateful for it (chances are, that line of thinking protected you), and then replace it with something new that rises to where you are now.
Releasing the old thought opens up room for the new thoughts; the old strategies can be replaced by new. Releasing an old thought involves four things:
1.Be grateful for the old pattern. Remember, the you from years ago, who adopted the initial pattern, probably did the best she should. Give her credit.
2.Learn from the pattern. Ask yourself, What is the purpose of this pattern? It might be to protect you or to keep you safe. Most of our thinking boils down to keeping us safe, feeling loved, and knowing we are worthy. Once you know why the pattern is there, be grateful again for the information your mind has given you.
3.Create a new pattern. If you need to speak up but the fear of others stops you, a new pattern would be, “I am confident onstage and the words come naturally to me.” Creating a new pattern requires you to reframe the old pattern with a new, positive, and empowering result.
4.Repeat the new pattern. Practice telling yourself the new pattern and catch yourself if you slip into the old. This is classic visualization—seeing the future you in the present and stepping into that truth. Write the new pattern down, and give yourself permission to believe it.
The thanking portion might seem strange, but it’s powerful and important. The you from years ago more than likely made the best decisions within her power at the time. You need to forgive yourself for the mistakes, thank yourself for what you did to survive, and love yourself enough to move on. If we don’t learn to extend gratitude to our old thinking for how it got us to where we are now, it’s like being in a leaking boat and not trying to repair it. Maybe you patch it temporarily, but the leak will continue. You need to do more than patch it—you must accept that there is a leak and then fully repair it.
Repairing it for me? It involved thanking my younger self for doing her best and then committing to move forward, telling myself that I am capable of big and great things. Every single time I ran, I would tell myself, “I am capable of running 899 miles.” Every single time I spoke in front of people I would tell myself, “I am a confident and inspiring speaker.”
You are capable of so much too! At the top of your list? You are capable of not quitting on yourself. You are capable of audacious goals. You are capable of being a beginner. You are capable at loving your old story … and also of writing a new one. You are capable of reframing your beliefs. You are capable of doing hard things. You are capable of reigniting your life.
SET YOURSELF UP FOR A STREAK
Toward the end of January, as I sunk into the truth of my capabilities, I pondered ways to keep myself on track. I knew the unpredictability of life, the awaiting speed bumps, so as I ran, I developed a strategy to help me get back on track if and when I fell off track. Notice the when. My strategy wasn’t to be perfect or to never miss a day—it was simply to keep running while knowing a day would probably come that would knock me off track. If you never allow yourself the space to stumble, you might as well not start. Stumbles happen. The power is in starting up again. The power is also in strategizing for the off-track moments and having a plan in place to help you start again.
When perfectionism creeps into goal setting, it can lead to overwhelm. Overwhelm tells you that there’s too much on your plate or that it will be impossible to get back on track. The solution? You need an “overwhelm buster” that says, “I may stumble, but this is how I’m going to get back on track.” I used these five steps to get back and stay on track:
1.Make a chart. It wasn’t anything fancy, just a hand-drawn chart in my notebook with a bunch of squares, each representing two miles. After every run, I’d open the book and color in another square. Yes, it’s technically a reward chart, but for me it worked. Not only did I break down how many miles I needed to run each day, but I was able to see my progress at a glance, and by seeing it, I became accountable for the progress. I didn’t want to get to the end of the year and come across the page filled in only halfway.
2.Share your goal. I posted what I was planning to do on Facebook. On February 1, I posted an image of how far I had run on a map. I explained my goal of running the distance from my home to my mom and dad’s and shared my mileage for the month of January and my insights thus far. My Facebook friends loved this goal. The level of interest and cheering surprised me—and it motivated me to keep going. There were times when I felt like quitting, but I didn’t want the next month to go by without posting and everyone saying, “Hey … are you still doing this?” I kept sharing for the entire year.
3.Do the thing. This might seem obvious, but the only way to stay on track is to do whatever you’ve set out to do. To accomplish my goal, I had to actually run. If I got behind, the number of miles I had to do the next day would increase. The pressure of that kept me running. I find it helps to also reverse-engineer what you’re doing. I knew I needed to run 3.2 miles a day to cover the distance to my parents’ home. Knowing that daily math kept me running. If I hadn’t taken the time to break it down, each day’s goal would have been nebulous. Find the nebulous spots in your goals, and work to make them concrete, measurable, and doable.
4.Visualize the end result. I pictured myself running in my parents’ neighborhood and into their driveway. Many days, this visualization kept my feet moving, even if they were slow. Visualization is incredibly powerful because it allows you to see the future you, even with the confines of the current you in place. The me running in March needed to see the me running in October—and to realize just how much the October me was grateful that March me didn’t give up.
5.Learn to say no. And be confident in your no. My commitment would break down because I’d start to waffle, to people-please at the expense of my own self. I’d feel guilt over the dishes or want to show up for an early-morning coffee with friends. Instead of my answer being a hard no, I learned to say no to the initial invite and yes to the reschedule. It didn’t mean I didn’t get coffee; it simply meant I didn’t during running time. Every single no is a yes to something else. No isn’t selfish either, especially if the no establishes a boundary that allows you to thrive. I also had to say no to my own tendencies to stop. On many days I wanted to quit my run, and I would ask myself, Why do you want to stop? When that day’s “because” would come out of my mouth, I could pretty quickly see that I didn’t have a compelling reason to listen to my own arguments for stopping. I said no to stopping, which became yes to continuing.
As the days progressed, something powerful emerged—a streak, a progression of days in a row. The longer the streak, the harder it is to break. This year, as I was writing this book, I decided to see how many days in a row I could run. I started January 1. I ran in the snow, ran my cul-de-sac sixty times in a row, ran races, ran when I didn’t want to … I just kept running.
And I ended up running seventy-five days in a row.
Dan’s friend Bert golfs on January 1 every year so he has the opportunity to say, “I’ve played golf every single day this year.” If he doesn’t play golf on day one, it would be impossible to play every day. He’s setting himself up for a streak! If you don’t create the streak, the streak doesn’t happen. Ever since I heard about Bert’s golf goal, I made it my own personal goal to run on January 1.
I have gone running on January 1 for the past five years.
Notice I didn’t say I have gone running every single day for the past five years, just that I run every January 1. I run that day because it allows for the rest of the streak to unfold. The year I ran 899 miles, I was terribly ill on January 1, but Dan knew about my streak and how important it was to me. He gathered my running gear, helped me put my shoes on, and ran/walked with me to the end of our block and back. Dan risked a cranky wife because he, too, knew the importance of my streak. Even though I couldn’t do much, I did something. And that felt good!
The first step of setting yourself up for a streak is a concrete strategy designed to keep it going. Having a strategy will make it much harder to come up with reasons to skip a day. I was surprised at the number of people invested in my running streak on Facebook. Prior to that, there were a number of followers I didn’t interact with much who were runners. When I shared this journey, all of a sudden these like-minded folks emerged and became my biggest cheerleaders.
No matter what, you have to do the work. No one else can do that for you. You can’t keep a streak going by thought alone. Put in the effort, even if it feels small, and keep going. There’s another hidden nugget in the streak—it creates a muscle-like memory for you. You aren’t starting from scratch; you are starting with experience. The other day, Caleb asked me to play a very fast piano piece by Bach for his girlfriend. At first I was a bit rusty, and my fingers got tangled on the keys. But then I started playing with ease, and Caleb said, “That was cool. I saw when your muscle memory kicked in.” The streaks create the memory of experience, and with that comes confidence. One other thing: when you fuel your soul and start to do amazing things, others will notice and be proud. It shows our friends and family the value of tending to our souls.
Finally, plan something big for the end of your streak—make it special and unique and motivating. Visualize the end with vibrancy. Visualize how you’ll feel, what you’ll wear, and who will be there. That visualization will keep you going in the middle of your journey, when you might be tempted to lose hope.
Over the years, running has become my pause. My time to think, to reflect. Running is where the idea of this book first began to take root. As I ran, I started to unpack life, goals, and what it really means to live … and an idea was born. This book is a representation of my own soul-spark journey.
PUSHING YOURSELF
By the end of February in my 899-mile year, I’d settled into a running rhythm and was proud to be thirty miles ahead of my goal. I kept building a buffer of miles, knowing that life happens. At a certain point, Dan wondered if I could push myself a bit more, if the goal was too small. “Do you think you could change your goal to a thousand miles?”
A thousand miles would have felt audacious in January, something completely out of reach when I set the initial 899-mile goal. It felt too risky, too much. But here I was, ahead of my goal and being challenged to up it. Dan could see my hesitation, that fear of commitment popping up. “How much more would you have to run every day, Rach?”
So I did the math. I would have to run 0.3 miles more every day to finish the year with one thousand miles under my feet. It would barely change the time I was gone each day, so I couldn’t use time as an excuse. I only needed three more minutes a day (maybe four if I didn’t run my typical pace). It didn’t change the distance much because I’d run considerably farther in one go. The only thing stopping me from taking the next step was me. I needed three more minutes a day. Let me say that again: three minutes. Okay, maybe four sometimes, but even that is ridiculously small. Upping the goal wasn’t an hour more; it was minutes.
This is where appropriate goal setting is critical. When I first began my running journey, this wouldn’t have been the goal. You need to be willing to look at your life as it is right now and establish a goal within the context of your starting spot. My starting spot was not a thousand miles. Don’t judge the start; accept it, knowing that in the future, both you and the goal will reach new levels.
The issue isn’t that we can’t accomplish our goals; it’s that our goals sometimes get distorted to seem as impossible as that claw machine. Some days you will drop … but then some days you will feel on top of the world. And this goes beyond running. That was a great deal of my own running story, but I really believe it illuminates the power in pushing beyond goals. Your story will be different, your goals too, but at the heart it is finding yourself, finding your spark, and being willing to set aside the time, make the commitment, and commit to yourself.
What if you wanted to start writing? Could you devote twenty minutes each morning to free writing? Is that possible? By the end of a year, you will have spent 120 hours writing. Can you imagine how much you might learn and grow?
What if you wanted to start your own YouTube channel? Could you invest in a course? Invest the same time as in the writing example above? Imagine how much you would learn and how much happier you could be pursuing something that fuels your spark.
I ultimately decided to add the 0.3 miles to my daily goal, increased my chart, notified my Facebook community, and kept running. My days didn’t drastically change, because I was already running. Once a goal is in motion, it becomes easier to pick up momentum because you are already in motion.
One day, while running up the hill to my home, I realized that the cul-de-sac near my house is 0.1 miles long. I decided to tack on that extra tenth, even when I was tired, because I knew that, after ten days, I’d gain a mile without feeling it. What happened next surprised me—instead of just adding the tenth at the end, I started looking for more tenths to add. Maybe I’d run the church loop or the lake trail twice. The tenth became the bonus, the part that kept me realizing I was more than capable of completing the goal.
Once you’re in motion as you chase your spark, you’ll discover the power of the extra tenth as well.
On December 29, 2022, I busted through a “1,000 Miles” sign in front of my home. It was an amazing feeling, and one I want you to experience as well. And I know you can do it if you set your audacious goal, set yourself up for a winning streak that will keep you going, and then push yourself for that extra tenth. You deserve to do this for yourself!
That extra tenth is grit—it’s that commitment to yourself and your capabilities to keep going even if no one sees it. Grit sees the end and thinks, I can do more. Grit is found in the single mom working two jobs and attending school online. She’s working for a better future and still taking time to fuel her heart. Grit is found in parents sitting in hospital rooms, researching and advocating for cures beyond the given answer. Grit is found in being consistent even when the reward isn’t at all close. Grit is fighting for your spark and seeking happiness in a world that might tell you it’s a lost cause.
Nurture this gift of a tenth, this 10 percent in your life. It’s small but potent. Visualize the 10 percent. Visualize your goal. Work through the steps to make your goal move from safe to going all in. My own little acronym for grit is this: Great Results in Time.
FIRE STARTERS
Ask yourself, What if … ? The best way I’ve found to push through my own limits is to ask myself, What if … ? Instead of it being a place where I could fail, What if … ? becomes What if I write one more page? or What if I run another block? or What if I speak up? The possibilities behind What if … ? are powerful if you allow yourself to see the positive. One small thing is doable. Your brain might try to convince you otherwise. Or it might even tell you, You have nothing left to write or You are out of stamina or People won’t like you if you speak up. Those beliefs are more than likely not true. Doing one small bit extra dilutes the global fallacies (“nothing,” “always,” “you can’t”) by proving that you can indeed do just a bit more. You can write, you have the stamina, and you don’t need to be friends with those who don’t value your voice.
Recalibrate as needed. Sometimes life stops your audacious goal in its tracks. My seventy-five-day running streak in 2024 came to a halt when I woke up on day seventy-six with influenza. Even with all the grit in the world, I couldn’t run through that splitting headache. If it was life or death, I could have, but it wasn’t and forcing myself might have been harmful. In that moment, I made a choice: break the streak and care for my body. I was annoyed until I realized this gave me a new target, a new streak to break. If I could run seventy-five days in a row, who’s to say I couldn’t run seventy-six? Don’t let life convince you not to start up again just because of a setback.
Break things down into small parts. Smaller parts make the “what ifs?” and the 10-percent-extra possible. You know the saying “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time”? The same is true for any goal. In the movie Apollo 13, there is a scene where the engineers at NASA are strategizing how to get the astronauts home from their failed lunar landing. At one point, they were trying to make a square air filter fit into a cylindrical hole. No one complained about the lack of resources but instead broke down the steps with the resources they had available. You don’t need extra resources either. While the extra resources can make things easier, they aren’t critical to success. If you do need more resources, perhaps someone can help you or you can add it to your goals as something you will work toward.