On Pace
Recently, I was speaking with a leadership client and they shared a personal accomplishment. They’d successfully run their first race a couple of weeks earlier. This reminded me of my own love affair with running. Now I like to run, but it wasn’t always the case.
My client and I both knew what it’s like to be the underdog: the last one doing laps in grade school, feeling like the race would never end, crossing the finish line way behind the pack. We conquered our goals and changed ourselves in the process.
This conversation dovetailed with a concept that’s been on my mind in terms of the work world as of late: pace.
When you run, you must consider pace – how fast you move to cover a distance. It ties to how much energy you use, and how you intentionally use your resources. Especially in competition, you have to consider how quickly you go to make sure you have enough energy left at the end of the race for a strong finish.
When I ran my first half marathon, I remember my frustration as I saw the finish line and realized I had a lot left in the tank. It wasn’t that I wanted to finish faster, it was that I knew I had more to give; I could have left more on the pavement.
When I ran my next race, I built on my learnings from the first. I knew to trust my instincts about my pace. I let myself move at the speed that was natural to me, using the starting jitters to get myself out of the crowds, leveraging the energy of others around me to pull me just a little closer to my goal. At the finish line, I felt like I had given all that I had, and truly done my best. Without even looking at my time, it was a truly rewarding moment.
This parallels with what I am hearing about how many people are thinking about their work these days. Some are considering a sprint, thinking—if I put in energy and focus right now, will it propel me to where I want to be more quickly? Others might feel that they are in an ultra-marathon—where and when do I think about conserving energy so that I can have that valuable reserve to go the distance?
In modern work, one prevalent dilemma seems to be: what is the right pace for today, while ensuring I don’t burn out and keeping reserves for a future time?
When thinking about your pace, you might consider the following questions:
How might I intentionally manage my pace instead of simply moving at a speed dictated by others?
What can I notice about acceleration that feels good – where is the line between that ‘I left it all on the pavement’ feeling, versus an acceleration that pushes me to the edge?
How might I motivate myself to keep going when it feels like a long and lonely back stretch?
What supports might feel like a tailwind that helps me keep the pace I aspire to?
And finally, perhaps the most notable distinction between a race and our work lives is the unknown finish line. Much work these days includes unpredictable twists and turns, and just as we think we are winding down in one lane, another may emerge. New challenges and opportunities will present themselves, and a big part of readiness comes down to knowing where you want to go, defining the finish lines for yourself (Seth Godin reminded me of this in a recent post, in which he observes that “it’s on each of us to decide what ‘enough’ looks like”) and feeling good about your pace.
The next few weeks are a traditional time to take stock of where you are and where you are going. Think back to when you signed up for the race and ask yourself:
Where are you now in your journey?
What is the pace that would support you the most?
How might you consider your energy?
And do you have the supports and guardrails to keep you on track until you reach the next milestone?
