Faced With A Herculean Task : Deconstruct & Consolidate

Our lives is made of small little boxes. Each boxes appears separate but altogether it is a one complete box. Every small box signifies some aspect of our life e.g professional, personal etc. All these boxes need to function in sync for a healthy living. Maintaining this delicate balance needs one to navigate various situations that get thrown at us. These situations or obstacles or tasks and our response to them is what makes up for the daily fight which we all put up consistently. The enormity of the tasks is directly in proportion to the goal that we have.

Enormous Goal : No Sweat

Ordinary human beings are those who live their life right from being in the cradle to the graveyard with utter nonchalance. It is as if they were on this planet earth just to while away their time. These set of human beings are largely living for survival and have very basic goals. Their goals are just capable to address the rudimentary needs. These needs are primal in nature like sex, hunger. etc

Moving to the other end of the spectrum that mankind faces. It is here that one gets to witness scenarios at some point of one's life and these event are as a result of getting thrusted with herculean task. Whenever such event occurs, you would find that many people will get frozen in their tracks and not know what to do next. There would also be another breed of humans who will get high on facing such herculean tasks. This is because, they love a challenge and the secret is that they have a structure to tackle such situations.

Let us now examine how we can tackle in our lives , these herculean tasks that get thrown at us.

1. Faced With A Herculean Task : First Deconstruct It

My tryst with serious running started in 1999 which continued during my time in Army and thereafter till few years as I joined back the civilian stream. Due to some personal struggles during 2011-2017, I neglected my physical workout. To add to all this, I faced challenge in my professional life as well in 2017. This was the year where I realised that I need to focus on the things which I can control. At that time, health seemed to be that factor which is in my hands and can be controlled. I started doing cycling initially and then moved to running. Initially, I was not even able to run 500m. This was a personal shock to me being the ex army guy who prided himself in being mentally, physically tough. Slowly and steadily. I started to increase the distance to which I could run. While I was at it, I came across many social media posts of my friends where everyone was into half marathon(21KM). I was smitten by the challenge and wanted to take a plunge but the distance scared me. It was akin to a heartbreak as there was a time where I had run even 40KM with battle load(15-20 Kg) and here I was struggling to now go beyond even 5KM.

While I was trying to come terms with my struggle in running, I read somewhere that 'rule of thumb is that if you can run 5KM, you have it in you to run 21KM/half marathon. I was elated as I could see a validation that provided me a booster in my desire to do this distance. On the very next day of reading this thumb rule, I registered myself for a half marathon. Yes! I was excited to do my first half marathon but the distance still seemed too much. This thought process changed when I read where a runner said that for long distances, you need to break the long distance to smaller distances. This meant that if you are running 21Km, it actually is 1KM done 21 times. Running 1KM was super-easy. I thought that I can do this. Thus started my practice and I went beyond 5KM. Soon it was 7 KM, 10Km and so on so forth.

I was brimming with confidence as I kept closing longer distances. Then another interesting thing happened. My neighbour was an avid runner, he used to encourage me. We used to discuss my running and during one of the discussions, he told me 'why are you fretting so much on 21KM. You do not have to run it all. Why don't you walk and run. You are running for yourself and not for some glory. Thus enjoy the run, listen to your body'. This conversation changed my mindset totally. Today as I write , I have been able to run at least 10 Half Marathon's.

The following are the two lessons that came my way because of running :-

a) Break the bigger goal into smaller goals- This is the deconstruct strategy where you break down the herculean task into smaller milestones. Achieving the smaller milestone, increases one's confidence, the goal becomes within reach and avoids making one feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the goal.

b) One foot after another | That is the secret to reach the destination - During my re-initiation into running, I was reminded about the famous adage used during our army training days. During cadet days, we all used to motivate ourselves during long run by saying 'avoid thinking of the long run. Just keep one foot after the previous one and soon you will reach your destination'. This tell us that we must make an endeavour to focus on the broken down smaller goals and then the resulting outcome will be in your corner.

6. Stop Thinking & Act

It took me a long time between getting excited by half marathon to finally actually doing it. I was always ready mentally to do the distance which was followed by physical sense. It would have involved working out on my physical self to avoid any likely injuries during the long distance run. However from the moment, I thought about it and finally when I ran -it was already an year that had went by. Looking back at this , I feel that one must not fight the battles of life in the head but often go outside of the head to rough it out.

Lao Tzu was a famous Chinese philosopher & his famous words were :-

A Journey of a thousand miles begins with a Single Step

This quote by Lao Tzu, encapsulates all aspects of life. It highlights the importance of taking small steps in one's life in order to move ahead in the journey of life. As per him, success is guaranteed once we make the beginning . Thus one must stop overthinking and act because however big the goal is , your success or failure is defined by the first step you take or do not take.

3. Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method in which you do focused work during 25-minute intervals — known as pomodoros — and take a five-minute break. We love this method because it:

• Improves focus.
• Minimises distractions
• Prevents burnout
• Promotes accountability
• Boosts motivation

This is why perfectionists and procrastinators will find this very useful. It’s easier to commit to 25 minutes of work at a time than a whole afternoon of non-stop work. This famous time management technique can be extended to other life scenarios where one can achieve razon sharp focus, increase in energy and passion to deliver results.

As I conclude this blog for Major.Talks , the following is what I learnt:-

a) Deconstruct- The herculean task should be broken down to smaller achievable goals. This puts the doer at ease as he/she feels that one needs to just push a litte in order to close the shorter goals initially.

b) Consolidate- Slowly but steadily march towards your end game . This involves multiple stakeholders, managing expectations & realise that 'You are unstoppable & you choose to be'."

Have a great weekend ahead.

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