As a coach of runner’s moving up in both distance and speed I regularly come across a lot of doubts and fears. Their goal is a race about 12 weeks away at the start of the season and they are often petrified about their ability to achieve their goal. They can run a 5k race (3.1 miles) but a 10k (6.2 miles) or 15k (9.3 miles) or 1/2 marathon (13.1 miles) race? THAT is something beyond their abilities and thus they fear they can’t do it.
And you know what my response to calm their fears and give them confidence is? I tell them this: You are right, you can’t do it…
Yet
I teach them that three letter word, ‘yet’, and it makes all the difference. It makes a difference because it helps them understand two critical things. First is, they don’t have to run a 1/2 marathon today. All they have to do is run the training run slated for today. That means they have to run 3 miles, maybe 4. Not 6 or 9 or 13, just 3, which they know, and I know, they can do. They can relax that way and just focus on the small picture, a much easier task.
Second is, training (and life) is a cumulative process. That brick wall you sometimes hit in training? While it stops you dead in your tracks, it also returns some value. And that value, otherwise known as ‘experience’. will come in very handy, perhaps at the next training run. Or maybe on your rest day. Or maybe 10 weeks down the road at the race. Who knows when you can spend what you earned from that workout. I don’t know. But I know you earned it and it’s in you and you will need it later on in the future.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865, American President #16.
If you’re my friend, you’ll read #3 in my Persuasion series. If you aren’t my friend yet, I hope that changes soon!
Have you ever planned a grand adventure with a stranger? Have you ever decided to do something scary, maybe even dangerous, because a stranger asked you to? Not likely. It usually takes a friend to convince us to do crazy things.
It also usually takes a friend if we are going to be persuaded to believe something new, something opposite of what we might have believed in the past. Whether it’s ideas about the universe and God (or no God), politics, cultural affairs or even science, we are much more likely to consider new ideas if it is a friend who sets the idea before us.
Are wanting to be influential? Be a friend first.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman, who is a friendly fellow and has yet to be President.
Quote by Abraham Lincoln, who was a friendly fellow and was President.
Napkins don’t fail me now! It’s day #3 of Failure Week.
Here is a question: In the Aesop’s fable, The Tortoise and the Hare, do you think the hare was upset at having lost the race to the tortoise? I have a feeling the hare wasn’t upset at all. I think he was ok with it. I can see him laughing off the loss while hanging out at his favorite watering hole with the boys.
Why? Because he had excuses ready. He felt ill. He had a hard night. His shorts were too tight. He woke up on the wrong side of the burrow. His stop watch was broken. The temperature was too hot. The path was confusing. The turtle stepped on his foot at the start line.
It’s a fine line between allowing that you will fail on occasion and not completely beating yourself up over it and being content and lazy about your failures, using excuses and rationalizations to talk away your inability or unwillingness to meet your goal.
It’s important to be dissatisfied with a failure because the feeling of dissatisfaction is what will cause you to evaluate what really happened. And evaluating what happened is how you can avoid the same mistake and improve the next time out. There might be reasons for the failure and you need to know them, but there should be no excuses. Excuses never help you grow.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865, 16th President of the United States
Day #2 of ‘Back To School’ week at The Napkin Dad Daily
I think this is a very insightful opinion. What was your generation taught and how did that come into our lives years later via government philosophies and programs. What is the predominant philosophy in the schoolroom now and what will that make the government look like in 20-30 years?
Drawing and questions by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865, 16th US President
I am not drawing this today because I feel dark or burdened in my heart. Actually the opposite is true. I am feeling some pretty good things lately about my family, my friends and myself.
I drew this today because around Valentine’s Day we always start to define who we love and why. We make decisions about who to send a card to, who to write a note to, who to ask out if you are single, how much to spend, how big a deal to make of it all with your spouse perhaps.
Kids have to decide who to give little valentine cards to at school. It’s all about figuring out who to show some love to at some level.
But this quote is deeper than that, it’s not about the cute love, it’s about the deep love. The love that allows you to criticize or question or even rail against the Gods if you have to.
I had a conversation a few years back that I still remember well. A friend mentioned that talking to this one person was hard because they weren’t sure they were going to get a trustworthy response. They needed to hear questions, doubts, ideas, criticism about what they were planning to do, but they thought this one person was simply going to agree with them, no matter what they said their course of action was going to be. They knew the heart was in the right place, but they wanted to hear more than just the pretty heart talk, they wanted the truth heart talk as that person saw it.
I appreciate those who combine both the sweet & kind with the real & true when they show me love. Sometimes more one than the other, sometimes both, sometimes only one. But I can trust that they are watching out for me and that ability to be both for me is the proof.
“Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?” – Abraham Lincoln
To do that I must be willing to see an enemy’s value, their worth and goodness. That isn’t easy when I have invested time and energy into finding reasons to not like the person. It means having to evaluate the reasons, giving up the invalid AND the valid reasons. It is akin to forgiveness in many ways. It’s something to always aspire towards, to consciously work at, not just hope for.
“It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.” – Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States.
One of the big problems the USA has, I think, is the harsh judgment of public figures’ vices without any balance between that and their virtues. The closet homosexual, the one who drinks to much, the gambler, the pantieless partier; we all have our vices. If those vices are doing damage to themselves or others then dealing with them is important. But just havingsome behavior you don’t like or find distasteful doesn’t mean you ignore or throw out the virtues that same person has.
I think we in the USA tend to feel that allowing something means weare approving of it. And that is not the case. We allow it because it is none of our business and isn’t hurting us or anyone else, even if we don’t like it. We can disapprove of it for ourselves, but we are in a country dedicated to individual liberty and if someone wants to gamble or not wear panties or spend money on silly things, then it’s their decision, not ours, and it doesn’t mean they are without virtue.
By the way, when I put ‘closet homosexual’ in the list, I am not saying homosexuality is a vice. I am saying that there are some people, including some who participate in it, who think it is and they act secretly because of it.
“The Occasion Is Piled High With Difficulty, And We Must Rise High With The Occasion.: Abraham Lincoln
I originally drew this in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. I have had it on flickr since then but, for some reason, I haven’t found the right time to post it to the Daily.
But with another tall, lanky Illini about to take the presidency I think the Lincoln quote is an appropriate one for the times. Let’s hope Obama, and we, rise to the occasion.
