Step Nine: When the Time comes, get Radical

Feeling great when u are supposed to rest? Ask your soul if it is time to get AT IT! Feeling lousy on what was supposed to be a huge day? Cancel without a second thought.

There is a time to feed the body, and a time to feed the soul. Take every tiny moment of potential action, reserve every inch of potential stillness, and fluidly, as progress presents itself - get radical. Do not allow for your own schedule to interrupt the process of healing and growth in real space and time. Every plan u make is nothing more than a guide. All projection is a rough estimate at best. You cannot predict how you will feel as you schedule your time. Learn not to feel guilty.

This is a picture of me on Saturday September 12th, at the finish line of a 50k ultramarathon with over 15,200 feet of elevation change. It took a bit over 8 hours for me to finish. This was 6 months out from perhaps the sickest Ive ever been, which was not a point in time but rather a period of about 18 months.

I arrived at the start line to this event because of all the training I cancelled throughout the year, not because of all the runs I finished. I cherish and celebrate this moment as a partial reclamation of Self. I got to engage in areas of my mind, body, and spirit that I had been unable to honor during earlier chapters in my fight. I only arrived here by way of constant adaptation.

I am looking at you, my fellow Type-A’s... Everything can be rescheduled, reshaped one day or even one hour at a time. So long as your design flows toward your priorities, there will always be time. Throughout the series I’ve discussed in many ways the importance of guarding your time and process. We can do this even with ourselves by really honoring our desire for health above all else. Whatever outcome we want most is what stays on the schedule even if everything else has to go.

This can get really paradoxical in the social spheres of self improvement and high performance, where routines and rituals are often discussed as keys to success. In fact I swear by them myself. But we also have to have a routine for failure, and it is a much harder part of the journey to accept when you have to go for the contingency plan more often than most. In the end there is still a net gain, and it can be every bit as large as you make it out to be.

Be okay with disappointing yourself and others from time to time if it means progress on the path of highest excitement, toward the thing that for you, fuels your Will to Act.

Most of us feel obligated to spend time with our feet planted in many arenas at once, and not all battlegrounds in our lives are ones we are involved in of our own free choosing. If you are fighting for your health, you cannot under any circumstance worry over the dissatisfaction of others if you leave their arena. You know what? In a month they wont even remember what it felt like to be inconvenienced by you, and you will still be fighting for yourself on the daily.

The same goes for the many battlefields of your own mind. If you let go of the erroneous details of your desires, lengthening your perception of time as it relates to self-satisfaction, and recognize you will always have time to pursue more experiences WHEN YOU ARE HEALTHY, than the energy and Willpower you can freely express toward that Overriding Goal of Vitality will be multiplied many times over. Keep your priorities in check consistently for long enough, and before you know it you will find yourself standing in the position of your dreams.

Stand only in the arena that would have you smiling again, be fluid, and when the moment strikes true, go All-In!

You may just find that milestones come faster as you begin to grant them more space...

If you’ve gotten this far I'd like to say THANK YOU for reading! And feel free to reach out if you need help or have any feedback.

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