The power of the morning run.
The doors open to the sun just barely peeking over the horizon, giving the sky a hint of purple and orange. It’s warm, with the sounds of downtown DC waking up, mixed with birds singing overhead.
These quiet early morning hours have become one of my favorite parts of the day. The city is still, it’s cool before the summer heat sets in, and there are no distractions. I am able to narrow my focus on one task: my morning run.
Like most people who have grown up overweight, running was something I did just about everything in my power to avoid. Even when I started really trying to improve my running, I hated it. My legs hurt with every step, my lungs felt like they were on fire, and my brain was on a constant loop telling me to stop.
I’ve learned that running, like most things in life, requires a ton of work and consistency to get better to a point where you enjoy it. It’s like a toll that must be paid, and that toll is months of discomfort, but you have to continue to show up.
My morning run has gone from something I would dread to something that is almost sacred to me. The morning run is something you choose to do solely for yourself. It starts your day with solitude and quiet, and most importantly, it’s choosing to start your day with something hard.
Choosing to do it for you.
Waking up early to get dressed, put my shoes on, and get out the door is definitely not easy to do every day. Some mornings I feel good right as I hop out of bed, while other mornings feel like my body is glued to the mattress.
What keeps me getting up every morning is the fact that my morning run is something that is purely for me and helps bring me closer to my goals. For years, I would wake up with just enough time to get ready and go to work.
We all have other responsibilities in our lives—people we care for, jobs we need to show up for—and they are all important. But so easily do we forget, or push to the side, doing things for ourselves and our goals.
Waking up earlier for you and your goals reminds us that, in order to show up at our best for others in our lives, we first need to show up for ourselves. And my morning run is how I choose to do that every day.
Solitude and quiet.
The internet and social media have brought so many positives into our daily lives, but they have also brought in noise—a lot of noise. We are constantly consuming some sort of information, whether it's through social media, television, podcasts, or music. We are bombarded with visual and informational stimuli every hour of the day.
The best part of the early morning hours is the quiet. Just as my legs and body have learned to crave the run, my mind has learned to crave the quiet. My morning run is a time that is completely quiet. It’s me, the road, and my thoughts.
Being alone with your thoughts almost sounds like a punishment in our modern-day world. In our fully plugged-in lives, we have to make quiet time for ourselves intentionally; it has to be something we plan each day.
My morning run allows me to have time alone, with no distractions, to think through challenges I'm facing or problems I am trying to solve. Intentional solitude and quiet have taught me not to be afraid of the thoughts in my head, but to lean into them.
The journey into entrepreneurship this last year has really just been about solving problems. You slowly move forward by solving one problem at a time (just in time for the next problem to take its place). The time I spend running in the morning has become a place where I can think through these problems, the possible solutions, and how to keep moving forward.
If I can recommend something that will vastly improve the quality of your life, it’s intentional time in solitude and quiet. It helps us get to know ourselves, think through problems, and be at our most creative.
Starting your day with something hard.
Let’s face it: life is hard. We all face challenges, whether it’s everyday inconveniences or earth-shattering bombshells. It’s not a matter of if they happen, but when.
I’ve found that the more intentionally hard things we choose to do, the easier the hard things we don't choose become. The more hard things we persevere through, the more resilience we build when we come out on the other side.
It’s like building up thicker and thicker armor so that the arrows of life don’t puncture so deep. An arrow that would have earlier caused a massive wound now only leaves a scratch.
My morning run is something that is intentionally hard. I front-load my hard at the start of my day, which makes whatever life decides to throw my way for the rest of the day not cut quite as deep.
Choosing to do hard things helps prepare us for the hard things life chooses for us. It helps us build resilience, confidence in our abilities, and the armor to keep moving forward no matter what life throws our way.
Life is going to be hard, so decide to choose your hard.
Have a great week!
GTY
