Monday 30 December 2013

New Year, New You? or New Year, Same You?

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Einstein was a clever bloke and realised that nothing will change if you keep doing the same old things. It is unlikely he was thinking of keeping active / running / walking / cycling when he said this and was probably deep in thought on some complex and meaningful physics related quandary; but I'm going to borrow this thought and relate it to either starting or improving a fun, healthy and active lifestyle. I don't think he woould mind.
The start of a new year is traditionally the time of new beginnings. Tradition is, for the sake of argument and to  allude to the Rule Of Three , anything that occurs three years in a row. In recent years the 3 most commonly heard vows on New Years Eve are usually for the holy trinity of  "lose weight; exercise more; drink less alcohol". All very worthy and no doubt genuine and heartfelt. We make our resolutions, we enter January full of enthusiasm for our 'new selves' , spend money on all the latest gear, and by March have given up!  Or even if you are already active and have all the gear [?can you ever have too much equipment and too many gadgets?!], we set our selves a new challenge, or goal, or dream to aspire to, yet don't do. Year, after year, after year. So, why, why , why???
Reasons why we repeat this kind of behaviour over and over and over again,are varied and many- and best left to sports / behavioural psychologists to explain. (Advice on activities and sports psychology is plentiful. Regular articles can be found in a wide variety of outdoor and fitness magazines such as Trail Running , Outdoor Fitness and  Triathlon magazines) . 
However, I often find it is 'life' that gets in the way of many of our good intentions! Yet there is one simple thing that can be done to begin the process of change: Do something different.
Without wishing to state the bleedin' obvious, Thinking about doing something, in itself, does not change anything; doing, does- and then only up to a point. And the two may be more closely related than at first seems, especially if we behave in the same way. Let me explain. Or rather, let someone else explain.
Step forward Albert: If we think the same way all the time, we get the same answers; if we do the same things all the time, we get the same results. If we want things to change, we have to both think and do things differently.
So the simple piece of advice and worldly wisdom I shall leave with you at the end of this year, to take forward through 2014, is 'do something different'.

Walk a new way to work. Cycle to work instead of using the car or bus. Walk a different way around the park. Run in the rain. Do more yoga. Try a 10km run. Try a 100km run. Cycle a sportive. Cycle to a friends. Cycle with friends. Go swimming. Walk in the countryside. Run across the Moors. Go out running in a group. Run alone. Look at the {outside} world in a different way.
  
Just don't do the same as you did last year. Unless of course, this was a great year for you! 

I'm not saying I had a bad year, or have any regrets; I didn't and I don't [well, not many!]. This is not about radically changing who you are, for as the late, great, Kurt Cobain once said  "wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are". This is just about maybe doing something slightly different, to maybe achieve different results. Or to just get a new perspective.

So don't be insane in 2014, do something different!

From Get Out Moor, have yourselves a great and safe 2014.

"The miracle isn't that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start.”  -  John Bingham