Relentless Forward Motion

This has been my running mantra for years. During ultras, long training runs, it doesn’t matter – just keep moving, even if I’m reduced to the Survival Shuffle. Each step matters and in time I will arrive at the destination. The path and effort required is variable, but the action of step after step is the same. Relentless Forward Motion.

The path of these recoveries is definitely variable. I’ve always compared it to the elevation profile of an ultra. Like this:

Up and down, out and back, it is all over the place, yet there is always relentless forward motion. In recovery, you are reminded that progress will not be linear. You hear it and understand it, but it is difficult to accept on the days that really suck or feel like you’ve gone backwards.

It took me awhile to embrace and cherish those difficult days – they aren’t backwards or stagnant but rather a sign of an impending leap forward, the arrow being drawn back. Lean into it and the results will appear, so long as I continue with relentless forward motion.

And so it goes with every part of this. Not just the physical day to day work, but the inner, personal work, too.

Beginning the Inner Work

One of my favorite recents reads is The Art of Impossible, A Peak Performance Primer by Steven Kotler. In it he outlines a formula for achieving any goal. It begins with defining your Massive Transformative Purpose (MTP), then chunks that down into High, Hard Goals (HHG), and then finally into daily Clear-Goals. I had already done this more organically with my own approach but taking the time to write mine out in this way added more clarity.

Part of my MTP is to have inner and outer symmetry and congruency – make my inner and outer selves match, for this entire journey to be a wholistic transformation. Kotler posits that the daily energy spent with our Clear-Goals, the relentless work, is what will take us through achieving the HHGs and ultimately MTP.

Yesterday I talked about the bowl of my soul and alluded to my personal inner work. Total punchline wrecker here but a huge portion of the work I started in 2020 came to a point of integration yesterday, a massive step towards putting together the entirety of my MTP.

I’m placing a gigantic bookmark RIGHT HERE to link back to so I can continue this story in it’s most logical chronological order, but note this moment and know that all of the work I’m going to describe moving forward MATTERED.

Every bit of daily grind physical work, the daily Clear-Goals I described on earlier pages MATTERED.

Every bit of chopping wood and carrying water, it all MATTERED.

Every bit of relentless forward motion MATTERED.

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