By doing the impossible

I love my job, but I think maybe in another life I’d like to be David Goggins or Eddie Pinero (Youtube them if you get a chance.)

Goggins is the guy that lost 106 pounds and learned to read so he could fight through Hell Week (actually three of them) for a chance to become a Navy SEAL. Reading his book, or listening to him on Youtube, you feel like you could run 135 miles through Death Valley like he did.

Or make it emotionally unscathed through a check of your latest credit card statement.

Things are hard right now, right? Every time you put gas in your car, it costs more. Every time you get groceries, your bank account shrinks more than you expected.

Not to mention the growing pile of everything else. Like, there’s an important position on our staff that I just can’t seem to get filled. Who knew you could feel so much rejection when you’re the one offering the job?

But if you saw my last post, over the weekend, I did something I’d never done before. I ran a half-marathon in under 2 hours. For every day prior to Saturday in the 39 years of my life, that feat was essentially impossible to me, but I did it.

Which begs the question, what other impossible things can I do?

That changes everything, right?

It’s a trick or magic or something like it, and I’ve known about it for a while, but this weekend cemented it.

There’s days I’d run the Greenville Bike Trail faster than I ever had before, or ran farther than I ever had before on a weekday.

They’re little things, but if you do something impossible before going to work, the whole pile of possible things you have to do over the next eight to 10 hours seems very bite-sized.

But it doesn’t have to be a half-marathon. I remember the days, not even a decade ago, that I couldn’t run a block. So the impossible was running a block the first day, then two blocks the second. Eventually a half-mile, even a mile. All impossible until you do it.

No one starts with a marathon.

So, what I would say is if lately you’re feeling very stoppable, do something impossible — you’ll feel unstoppable.

That might be running a block. Or walking to the end of the street. Running a sub-20-minute 5K before breakfast. Or doing your first push-up since high school, even though you’re pretty sure you can’t.

There is something you can do right now, today, that you think is impossible, that once done will make a lot of other stuff feel very, very possible.