What Training for a Half Marathon has Taught Me about Small Business Ownership
Random title, huh? I’m not sure I ever would have made the connection myself if it weren’t for the very, very long runs I’ve been on lately. The thing about training for a half marathon is that in order to get to the 13.1 miles, you have to build up your endurance to said mileage by running all of the other miles that lead up to it. At a very average, non-braggable pace of 11:30 minutes/mile, those 10, 11, 12 mile runs tend to leave you with lots of time to think.
On my last (only) 12 mile run, I noticed my little inner-monologue started to sound like all of those motivational posters you see in office buildings. “One minute at a time!” “You’ve got this!” “Little by little!” I’d start singing along to whatever track was playing in my ears but then a hill would come along and I’d hear that monologue kick back in. “One foot in front of the other!” It occurred to me that this “little hobby” I picked up for fun is not so dissimilar from this HUGE VENTURE I took on in 2020 - small business ownership.
Make a plan, stick to the plan, pivot when you have to.
Like anything, when you have a goal you want to achieve, the easiest way to do it by planning out steps and knocking out those steps one at a time until you eventually cross the finish line. (Strap in y’all, we’re gonna have a TON of running analogies here…)
With a half-marathon or any distance race, there are literally thousands of training plans, apps, community groups and more to help you figure out what plan is best for you. Sometime you have to try out a few until you figure our what fits.
The same goes for small business ownership. Luckily, you are not the first person to start a small business and so there is a plethora of information for you to learn from but not all of that information is relevant to you nor may you want to follow it!
Sometimes things get in the way of your plan. Weather, busted gear, illness, finances, a tree in your way (true story) whatever! Those are the moments you have to pivot and be flexible so that even if you have to divert from the plan a little, you don’t fall off the path you’re on completely.
A positive mindset is your best friend.
This seems like a cop-out, right? It’s possible but, hear me out. When you start to get overwhelmed by the overall picture and what you still have left to do, negative thoughts start to creep in. Believe it or not they actually affect your performance. You start running slower, your posture sucks, and you start think of every excuse to go home and call it a day. (We’ll talk more about that later.) What changed for me was instead of thinking about the end goal, thinking about what I’ve already done, and breaking everything up in to segments.
For example, yesterday I was on mile 4 and it occurred to me I still had 8 to go. The thought can be pretty daunting and overwhelming so instead of letting it consume me, I had to start telling myself “you’re 1/3 of the way done!” “just got another 4 miles!” and also started distracting myself with where to go on my run in order to achieve the distance (“running math” as I call it.)
With Music on The Move, we are well aware of how many projects we have. It does, in fact, get overwhelming. Making to-do lists, telling myself “one thing at a time,” and (one of my favorite Glennon Doyle quotes) “you can do hard things,” helps. Trying to take difficult moments and tasks and asking myself “what can we learn from this” or “what joke can be mad about this later?” Truly, the sarcastic in me leans towards the latter but, whatever floats your boat!
Take advantage of the momentum of a downhill & don’t force an uphill.
Every runner LOVES a downhill slope, an opportunity to up your pace, to feel like Usain Bolt for like a millisecond, and then your back at the bottom of the hill, feeling great, like you can keep going forever. Taking advantage of the momentum to get your farther, faster. That one seems pretty obvious right?
But let’s talk about the flip-side of that - don’t force an uphill climb. When you’re running up hill and you’re on a distance run, the last thing you want to do is expend all of your energy on that hill. You’ll wear yourself out and you won’t have the energy you need to finish strong. That’s one of those moments where you have to listen to your body and think to yourself “is this worth it?” If you want to challenge yourself to make it to the top of the hill, great! Go for it, speed racer! But, if you’re on mile 2 and you still have 11 to go, think about where you want to put your energy.
The same goes for running a small business. When you have momentum, you need to take advantage of it! Keep going until the momentum is gone however long or short that is and then once you get to an uphill, think to yourself “is this a challenge I want or need to put energy towards or, is my energy best served elsewhere?”
The best example I can think of is when we started doing our weekly live streams in 2020. We had momentum from our showcases in 2019 and we didn’t want to lose everything we had worked so hard to build.
Not every run is going to be your best run. That doesn’t matter.
What matters the most is the fact that you got up and did it. I’ve had days where I made it barely 2 miles and my body was NOT having it so, I turned around and went home. I’ve also had days where I have felt INCREDIBLE and ran the fastest I’ve ever run in my life. Yes, eventually your times get consistent but it’s because you keep going, not because of some magical thing that happened.
Not every day is going to be a great day, or even a good day at that! That’s just how it goes. Not giving up is how you get to the great days.
The finish line will make it all feel worth it.
There is nothing like turning a corner and seeing the finish line. After all of those miles your legs get a new-found energy and propel you right across that finish line and your done. It is such a wave of emotions from relief, pride, joy, a rush of adrenaline, and exhaustion, all at the same time.
Everything you put in to training - the blood (I’m not the most graceful, OK?), the sweat, the tears, the time, the toll it takes on your body, came through and got you across that finish line. At the end of the day, you did it.
Whenever we wrap a season of Paradox Jukebox or, a showcase plays it’s final notes and everyone’s left, or a student accomplishes one of their goals, it feels like crossing a finish line. We put a lot of work in to everything we do and sometimes it’s hard for us to see the “finish line.” Once we do though, and everything comes together the way it should, it feels amazing.