Love the Journey, Not the Outcome
This year I’ve been exploring what we can learn from those who do endurance events like long distance hiking and cycling, ironmans, and ultramarathons that both stretch them and require that they sustain themselves in these endeavors. Why? Because I think they are analogous to living+working and managing careers from decade to decade in our modern times, which is an endurance event itself.
I first talked with my good friend Dominic DeMarco in Episode 54, and recently I spoke with Jack Hseuh, an ultramarathoner, about his experiences. Jack tends to run 100-milers but in the recent past ran the Tor de Géants, a 330 km race (~230 miles over 6 days!) in the Italian Alps. Imagine what that required from a stretching and sustaining perspective!
In podcast Episode 62, Jack and I talk about finding motivation in loving the journey, the benefits of putting in the work, redefining success beyond the outcome, embracing failure, and how others support you along the way. There are a lot of analogous and helpful insights for all of us from Jack’s experiences and what he shares.
I hope you’ll give it a listen and be inspired like I was. A big lesson for me from this episode that I’ve embraced is to lean into what I want to experience rather than worry about the end goal: love the journey, not the outcome. It made me think of these questions, which might be helpful for you, too:
What if success was about enjoying the journey and honoring my values?
What would it look like if I were to make choices such that I loved the journey?
What if I were to focus on just the next action I need to take?
Who can I surround myself with to make the journey one I love?
Who is my cheering squad for whom I can be grateful to be with on this journey?
At the end of the episode, Jack’s parting wisdom was to encourage us all to reach for big, audacious goals, to put in the work, and to not be afraid of failure.
So let’s stretch and strive, go the distance, and, importantly, enjoy the ride.
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