Keeping on your toes is always a best practice. Whether you’re just living in this unpredictable world or you’re running up that last hill in a race; stay ready, stay on your toes, keep moving. Anything can happen. Everything usually does.
Personal goal-setting has never been an asset of mine in the traditional sense. Never have I ever had a 5-year plan. Never have I ever broken down a pro/con analysis for a major life decision. Never have I ever known what I wanted to be when I grow up.
I am firmly entrenched in the “take whatever the world gives you” camp. Seize the day, don’t over-plan it. Has it worked? Absolutely. How do I know? Because I don’t have the hindsight measuring stick of a diary full of unfulfilled targets. Ignorance is bliss. No regerts.
Take this post as an example: I sat down at my desk with the intention of writing about my experience running the Bimbler’s Bluff 50K. We are now on to something completely different. Let the target move. Life, uh, finds a way.
There are reasons for this approach. Chief among them is being saddled with a chronic illness. Maintaining flexibility is important. Letting your targets move is a matter of survival. Sometimes not having any goals at all works to your advantage.
I come from a family of over-achieving, life-goal-setters. I appreciate and envy that mindset. Much to their (initial) frustration, I had to unhook that genetic wiring. Once I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease at the age of 14, having life goals seemed like a pointless, frustrating, even debilitating practice.
As a teenager, there are only so many times you can set a goal for yourself only to fail because of something out of your control before you start to rethink your approach. This is life with IBD. Want to do well on that exam? Today’s symptoms have other ideas. Building up the courage to ask your crush to prom? They think you’re a freshman. Want to fly fighter jets? No can do, buckaroo.
Before we go further, let’s not confuse a lack of goals with a lack of drive or determination.
While I abandoned the idea of, say, breaking the minute barrier in a 100 butterfly, I accepted the idea of maximizing random opportunity. It started with attempting to make the most of a good, healthy day and expanded to college, career, and life in general.
I went with (and continue to go with) the universal flow, because in many ways I can’t control my own. However, when I find the flow, I ride that sucker.
Take my career as an example. I started off as an hourly wage earning grunt in the blue collar world of refinery maintenance and construction. I jumped from wearing FRCs everyday to the white collar management consulting, but only because they found me. Then came another leap into private equity in another instance of universal randomness.
I wasn’t looking for any of those things. I thought I wanted to be a high school teacher and water polo coach. Having post-it note goals stuck to a mirror would have been too restrictive: “I can’t do this because I planned on that.”
The key was to maximize each of those random opportunities. Throw myself into the challenge. The benefit of 25+ years of being sick is learning how to endure and overcome. “If I can do that how do I succeed doing this?”
Get away from the nouns and focus on the verbs.
Two years ago all I wanted was something to get me outside. I had been stuck in my house for six months while I waited (not so patiently) for an ostomy reversal surgery. The one time I had tried to leave home for more than an hour, I found myself rummaging through my friend’s garage for duct tape. It was an unsuccessful attempt to MacGruber my ostomy bag back to my belly because it started to leak. No more field trips.
On my first post-surgery escape I took a walk along the trails of the arboretum - I should do this more often. A week later, I was hiking through a different local park - maybe I should visit all of the nearby parks. A week after that, I was trying to run a quarter mile every mile - it might be cool to be able to run a 10K without stopping.
Becoming a trail runner ended up as random as anything else and has only reinforced the drive vs. goal concept. I liked the idea of running 10Ks, maybe even a half marathon. That turned into a race every month last year to raise funds and awareness for inflammatory bowel disease. Somehow a 50K got thrown in there because of course it did.
My goal this year was to volunteer at these events instead of running them, and yet…
This weekend, I completed my fourth ultramarathon of 2024. I signed up for it one week ahead of time. I had a loose goal time, but really went into it with the idea of taking whatever the day handed me and making the most of it. I felt capable, not specifically prepared, but it sounded fun. Maximize the opportunity.
There are a lot of days when I envy people that have goals and have laid out an attainable path to reach them. Leaning into the drive, focusing on the verbs and not the nouns, has gotten me into some trouble along the way. I’ve bitten off more than I can chew plenty of times. I’ve travelled down roads (literal and metaphorical) far too long before readjusting. But like I said before, these are my survival instincts.
I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. I don’t have a goal of what I want to accomplish with running. These are choices that would drive some people crazy when they need control. These are choices that keep me sane in the face of uncertainty.
Even in an era when I would say I’m the healthiest version of myself, it doesn’t feel guaranteed. A 5-year goal feels foolhardy. Staying on my toes, going with the flow, focusing on making the most of a good (or bad) day, that’s my ticket.