From 10k to 20milers without the aches

I want to share a personal story about performance. I think post-pandemic, higher performance is needed, from everyone. Personal productivity will be essential. So let me share a little of my journey to help you in yours.

Back in 2013, I went from running 15 miles a week and jumped to 100miles a week in the space of 4 months.  

I went from aching after a 10k to running back to back 20 milers on the weekend without even tiring.

I then took this new level of performance and ran the Marathon Des Sables, an epic six-day race across the Sahara desert averaging a marathon day with the longest stint being 85km in a day.

A week-long holiday of endurance!

The toughest challenge I faced in preparation was to make the shift of desiring something and then making it happen; like in business, it's great to have goals and ideas, its execution what counts.

I had a tonne of motivation but knew the challenge would demand more than will power alone.

I needed to discipline my mind and create a system that would make it easier to do my training as well as keeping what I already valued in my life.

It was easy to map out a training plan and get into the habits of doing the right things that would build my endurance.

What was tough was being able to carve out time of an already busy work and home life to complete the training and maintain everything else. 

I had to beat being busy.

I had to learn to be even more productive in what I did to free up the time I needed.

I didn't want to take the easy, selfish route and sacrifice family time or my work just to pursue my challenge.

I wanted it all, and I crafted a way. 

What I did was counter-intuitive I didn't do things faster.

I did fewer things and got even better results.

The things I did and the way I did them were frictionless, meaning the effort I put in correlated directly to the results I delivered.

I was firing on all cylinders.

Unstoppable and unbeatable in my mind.

The more I achieved, the more productive I became.

It was like I had kickstarted a flywheel which was now spinning at mach speed.  

Looking back, I had found there was so many "things" I was doing that took loads of effort.

A lot of the things I was doing were physically and mentally draining me.

These things weren't even adding any value to me, my family, team or business.

I stopped doing them.

The ones which I had to do, I created the best frictionless process to do it.

For my challenge, I needed to improve my capability in endurance running; however, first, I had to create capacity so that I had the time and the energy to build that capability.

Personal productivity was my game-changer. 

As the world of work changes I think it can be a game-changer for you too.

The world will demand more from you.  

Your performance in 2019 will be half of what will be expected from you post-pandemic in 2020. 

Thoughts to ponder:
What things can you stop doing?

What frictions and tensions could you remove so your effort has a closer correlation to your results?