Yet another practice building lesson from the 1/2 marathon.
Corral A - the fast runners
Last month I participated in my first 1/2 marathon as a walker. Walking 13.1 miles gives one a lot of time to think. Several lessons related to life, business and building a counseling practice came to mind as I crossed those miles. In this post I talk about:
“Set Your Own Pace”
At the starting line, they had us line up in “corrals.” Corrals? I envisioned wooden fences where they keep horses.
But actually they had us stand by signs that indicated when we thought we’d finish. I went to Corral “C” – which was the last one.
It took me 6 minutes to get to the start line as the “real” runners in Corral A and then B took off. Corral C held the walkers (like me), some elderly people and the people with baby carriages.
With that many people herding toward the starting line, all I could see were the backs of 2 women directly in front of me.
They were starting to take off.
They were a mother-daughter team. The mom was my age and we had on similar outfits (functional but nothing anyone would describe as cute.) As soon as we ambled up to the starting line, those two ladies took off. They had rocket fuel in their legs – even the mom! They were walking but they kind of looked like cartoons with the dust flying up from their feet. They started passing a lot of people – even some of the runners.
I decided to follow them and let them pace me. Okay, now I am sure you can see where this is going. Within seconds, my breathing was off, my ankle was beginning to twinge and we had just started.
With a twinge of sadness, I let them go ahead and began to set my own pace. It turns out there were others walking about the same pace but my focus was on what felt good and right for me.
That mother and daughter certainly must have finished much earlier that I did – I never saw them again after the first couple of minutes.
But while I might have ended at the finish line much later, I was uninjured, successful and happy.
Set your own pace – in building your counseling practice and whatever other goals you choose to take.
Don’t let anyone else try and tell you how fast you should build your counseling practice or how many new clients you should attract. Setting your own pace will make you a winner.
P.S. And some of the others who took off really fast? I saw them throwing up in the bushes at mile 2.
