dear friends,
When this newsletter lands in your inbox, it will be the morning of the New York City Marathon, one of my favorite days of the year. My family teases me on Monday morning when I’m hoarse from all the cheering, but the sore throat is worth every bit of scratchiness. I love being part of the two million humans celebrating the efforts of 52,000 other humans.
Every year, we start the day pretty much the same way: watching the start of the race on television with the professional wheelchair division at 8:00 am, handcycle and select athletes with disabilities at 8:22, professional women at 8:35, and professional men at 9:05. When the first of these groups wends its way toward the 59th Street Bridge, we head outside to the music, homemade signs, and good cheer on First Avenue. All of us rooting for people we know and complete strangers alike. Once the professionals speed past, we walk back to our apartment to watch the winners on television as they cross the finish line in Central Park. We hang out for a bit, enjoy a lazy bagel brunch, then head to the park ourselves. We like to stake a spot on Cedar Hill.
This is my favorite part of Marathon Day: standing in Central Park cheering on all the marathoners who have come here from everywhere. There are people running to support causes and people running in memory of loves ones, some are running to hit a PR, and some are running just to finish this one race. Cedar Hill is near the 24-mile mark, almost the end, but not quite. Some people are moving at a good clip, and some are doing a half-walk/half run jog. It makes no difference to those of us cheering. We’re celebrating the effort, not the result.
And you feel the magic in that cheering. We’re cheering because we want to support each person who is doing something really hard, because we want to share our energy with their tired legs and sore knees, and because we know that sometimes the difference between finishing the race and not is just a little bit of kindness. On Marathon Day, it is crystal clear that the process is as worthy of celebration as is the final accomplishment.
I’m not saying it’s easy to touch a sense of joy in the process when we’re tired and cranky and would rather do anything but the hard thing we’re doing, but in the spirit of the NYC Marathon, that’s the practice I want to cultivate this month.
So, here’s how I’m approaching my cultivate-joy-in-the-process practice:
(1) Identify the goal. Whatever it is you want to do — change a habit, learn a new skill, or let something go — the first step is to identify it as clearly as you can. Instead of saying “learn to speak Italian,” make it “learn to speak Italian well enough to live in Florence for six months.” In the place of “get fit,” let it be “get into shape to hike the Tetons this June.” And if you’re trying to stop doing something, instead of “stop obsessing after family gatherings,” make it “find a foolproof way to soothe frayed nerves in the moment” (a tall order, I know!).
(2) Identify the process. Process is every little thing you do on the way to your goal. The reason we hear so much about it is that process is where we live. As I write this newsletter, the goal is to finish it. The process is the thinking about what I’m going to write, typing, revising, editing, choosing a graphic, scheduling the post time, etc. None of it is particularly sexy or exciting, but when you can find something to enjoy along the way to your goal, you have a much better chance of reaching it.
(3) Find your own cheer squad. If you are a person who scratches their head when people talk about a vicious inner critic, you probably don’t need to find your cheer squad. If, however, you live with at least one harsh inner voice that always is able to find fault, then this trick may prove useful. The inner critic is vigilant. It pays attention to process so that it can criticize you. Let it pay attention, but politely decline to believe its story. Instead, every time your inner critic pipes up about how you’re doing something poorly, use that moment to remind yourself that you’re doing something difficult. No matter how well you’re doing it or how long you’ve been at it, you’re a person who does things that are tough. Cheer for that! Cheer every single time.
(4) Take in what is good on the way. The key to this practice is learning to feel what is good while we’re in the middle of doing it. The more we enjoy the things that align with who we want to be and what we want to do, the easier it is to be and do those things. Waiting to feel good until you’ve accomplished the thing is like walking to a party through Central Park with your eyes closed. The party will be nice, but so is walking through the Ramble, over The Bow Bridge, and past the Conservatory Water. You get the idea. There is so much wonderful to be found when you start looking for it along the way.
And that’s the energy I’m going to cultivate this month. The energy that reminds me that we celebrate because we run the race, not because we win it. A celebration that honors the fundamental truth that when we do something that is hard for us — regardless of outcome — we become a person who does hard things. That’s reason to cheer, for all of us.
warmly,
alison
