Most people don’t quit the big goal. They quit the boring middle. The bit where the buzz has worn off, no one’s watching, and there’s no finish line in sight.
I know that middle well. I used to live there. Not anymore. I changed my life by learning to stick to my goals, and it rebuilt my health, my running and the way I run my business. But sticking is a skill, and skills need a next test.
So this edition is different. This exclusive season is called 1% Better. Four episodes across a year, one goal: track my 5km time and get faster, with my coach in my corner. Every episode starts with the two of us running that 5k on camera, then walking straight into the studio. Sweating, lungs burning, no time to put the polished face back on.
The episode below is an invitation to pick a goal of your own and chase it alongside me. Here’s how it started.
This time I didn’t just sit across from my guest. I ran 5k with her first, then walked straight into the studio and hit record.
Kerrin is my running coach and my friend. She’s the founder of Chi-Me, where she trains professionals’ minds the way the rest of us train our bodies. In 2010 she entered a full Ironman off three months of training, never having ridden in cleats or run a marathon. She finished. She has since run the 87km Comrades three times, once in 8 hours 22, the 81st woman in a field of 20,000.
I asked her which limitations are harder to fight, the ones other people place on you or the ones you place on yourself.
She told me your own. Other people’s opinions don’t really matter. What you say to yourself does. If you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re probably right.
Here’s what I’m sitting with.
The big goal isn’t your problem. The boring middle is.
And the boring middle doesn’t ask for motivation. It asks for something smaller. Kerrin’s rule is 15 minutes. Tell yourself that’s all you’re giving the gym, and 90% of the time you’ll do double, because starting was the whole battle. Don’t feel like it? Put your shoes on and see where that takes you. I used to think advice that small couldn’t matter. Then I fought her on the smallest thing she ever put in my programme, a mindful Sunday walk. I went grudgingly, with my dogs, Coco and Delphi. That walk is where this entire exclusive season idea came from. Small is the strategy.
So the homework I’m giving myself, and you, is simple.
Pick one goal and put a number on it. Mine is the same 5k, run throughout the year, attempting to get faster each time. Then find your version of putting your shoes on, the 15 minute start you can’t talk yourself out of.
Wherever your starting line is, that’s exactly where you start.
Just one episode this time. Watch the run before you listen. Kerrin first, Kerrin only.
EPISODE 153: 1% Better with Kerrin Watson-Smith
With Kerrin Watson-Smith, founder of Chi-Me, mental fitness and performance coach for professionals, my running coach and co-host across all four episodes of this exclusive season
This is the first episode of 1% Better, a four part season recorded across a year. Before every episode Kerrin and I run the same 5k on camera, tracking my time as she coaches me to bring it down. Then we walk straight into the studio while the lungs are still burning. The training, the hard days and everything in between gets documented. The honest middle included.
What you’ll take away:
- The three word mantra she told nobody, until a friend repeated it back word for word at an Ironman finish line, and how to build your own
- Her unpopular opinion that balance in business isn’t a myth, it’s a discipline, and the people she’s watched prove it
- Why mindfulness feels threatening to driven business owners, and what the sceptics in her sessions are actually afraid of
- The 15 minute rule for the days you can’t be bothered, tell yourself that’s all you’re giving it and 90% of the time you’ll do double, plus the smallest habit that could start your own 1% Better year
▶ Watch the run and listen: YouTube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Buzzsprout
▶ Find Kerrin and Chi-Me: @thatgirlwhoruns | @chi_me_australia | Facebook
P.S.
If it’s your brand that’s stuck in the boring middle, still the one you started with while the business kept moving, talk to me.
I keep a handful of free Brand Discovery sessions aside each month, just for TRBLC listeners. One hour, with me. We look at where your brand is actually landing and what’s holding it back.
