Road Work
“When you get stuck or emotionally jammed up one of the ways to get yourself unclogged and flowing again is just to keep moving. Run. Walk, Jog. Write. Do the dishes. Or whatever but don’t just sit around doing nothing.” — Gary Halbert
This past week I was facing my strongest resistance to writing for a client’s work. Too much emotional baggage was around me. So my client asked me to go for a walk or run to clear my head. And bam! 30 minutes of running and I wrote 2 weeks' worth of social content in 2 hours and laid out a detailed content strategy in another hour.
One hour of road work — walking, jogging or running can solve a big chunk of your problems. The work ‘work’ is important but road work is even more important as it keeps your mental machine running.
I have been running for 2 years now (on and off). But it wasn’t until I read ‘What I talk about when I talk about Running’ by Haruki Murakami that I truly understood the value of road work and how it’s helping me do better work. The book won't make you want to run, but it will help you understand what running means to Murakami and its impact on his writing and thinking process.
Leaving you with one of my favourite quotes from the book:
“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Say you’re running and you think, ‘Man, this hurts, I can’t take it anymore. The ‘hurt’ part is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can stand anymore is up to the runner himself.”