Delusions of Grandeur

Are you familiar with the strengths finder?  You should be!  It's an awesome tool to help you understand what you excel at.  I bought the assessment for my whole family one Christmas; a gift I'm sure they cherished (well maybe).  The creators realized that people spend more time being told what their weaknesses are then their strengths and perhaps ironically people do better when they focus on their strengths instead.

Mine are:

1. Ideation
2. Strategic
3. Input
4. Significance
5. Adaptability

All of these fit me... but I only want to talk about the one that caught my attention recently.  Significance.  What's that?

People who are especially talented in the Significance theme want to be very important in the eyes of others. They are independent and want to be recognized.

Okay so when I first read that.. ah, so I'm full of myself? that's a strength?! but I read more.

Because of your strengths, you set definite goals for yourself. These performance objectives allow you to exercise control over the events in your life. They also influence many of the choices you make. It’s very likely that you are determined to be in charge of your own destiny. This is your life. You intend to be the ultimate decision maker regarding personal and professional matters. Instinctively, you seek jobs and assignments that allow you to influence people to do whatever needs to be done. You are eager to be in a position of authority. By nature, you definitely desire to be an influential person. You want to be put in charge of important groups or projects. You pay close attention to the behaviors, processes, or plans you need to perfect, upgrade, or simply do better. Driven by your talents, you understand the proverb “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Instead of choosing the easy and obvious path, you challenge yourself to overreach your goals. With courage and perseverance, you dare to produce exceptional results. You seldom ask for guarantees of success. Instead, you boldly forge ahead toward your desired goals.

Ok, so that sounds better.

There are so many sound bites in this paragraph that I resonate with or have a story for... but I think to sum it up - tangible specific goals work well for me... and I do well under pressure.

So that brings me to running,( like you didn't see that coming?? ) When I first started running... I thought it was pretty awesome that I was exercising period and that I finally found something I could stick with.  I've pursued other sorts of exercise in the past because I thought would be fun: yoga, rock climbing, badminton, and roller blading have all been given a fair shot, but fun doesn't really keep me motivated.  I still like to do those things on occasion still for social reasons and sometimes just to mix it up - but none of them get the attention that running does.  I think the reason is that none of these 'fun activities' drive me, is that at the end of the day fun doesn't really motivate me.  I'm actually sort of wondering if fun motivates people at all really?

Anyway, a couple years ago I got it in my mind that I would run a sub 30 5K... it seemed like a good way to legitimize what I was doing with running and I knew it would be hard too.  (at that time my best 5K was around 33 mins, with the average being closer 35).  I've been making a serious effort, but my PR remained 31:30 .  Anyway, a few weeks ago my work sponsored a 5K and I really only signed up for 'social and professional' reasons.  However, after my stellar 10K - I knew this could be it..... and it was!  

So I started off running really fast in the race... and my self talk was like "you are not going to be able to hold this - you need to slow down", but then I just kept telling myself ... "it's only a 5K... you don't have to go much longer"  Final time: 28:42  (9:15 pace)

Initially, just completing a 5K was unfathomable.  Considering I was far from an athlete in highschool and the farthest I was expected to run before this was a 1.5 mile run for gym class... A run which I vaguely remember having a slower pace than 12 min mile pace.  But I did that, and then I wanted to overcome longer distances and now I've done a marathon (well 2 actually).  Then I wanted to add in other sports and did a Tri.  When I finished the Tri at a better than expected pace... it occurred to me - that I could be fast (mind you I was still in the back half at this point).  I did well time wise at the Women Rock too and at the TC marathon I beat my first marathon time by over 40 minutes.  And then, this spring at the Securian 5K - it was the first time I finished in the front half for my age group.

So I've achieved all these things with running... and now you know what it makes me want to do - acheive more!  It's like I can't help it.  The next big goal:  'beat Oprah' in the marathon.  That would be a time of 4:29:20.  Race predictors have me coming in 10 mins slower based on my (new) 5K time, so it's a challenge... but I think that's my whole point.

To reiterate my initial sentiment, I strongly encourage you to learn about your own strengths.  The discovery has proved a powerful directive for me.