As a fitness enthusiast and a corporate denizen, I am always asking myself, How are sports and careers interrelated? To answer this question, I draw a parallel between my participation in marathons and my commercial experience in global corporations. In fact, I’ve found that that the following approaches to marathon training can be effective for accelerating your career. Whether you’re interested in training for a marathon or enhancing your career, you’ll likely find these eight habits both helpful and inspiring.
1. Goalsetting
The constant marathon distance (42.2 kilometers or 26 miles, 385 yards) allows athletes to set a specific time goal in which to complete the race. However, professional runners take goalsetting to the next level – they cut the entire distance into smaller pieces and set a time goal for each interval. Moreover, during the race, they check their time at checkpoints, and if they are off their planned pace, they adjust their speed accordingly.
This macro- and micro-level approach toward setting end and interim goals can be applied to career planning as well. For example, a career map that includes specific long- and short-term goals would be a helpful navigation tool for pursuing a dream job. Like a professional runner, you can compare your actual progress with what you’ve planned and make corresponding changes to accelerate your career in order to achieve your ultimate goal.
2. Motivation
Marathon is a demanding sport. I don’t know anyone who would run 42.2 kilometers just for fun. In most cases, there’s a reason a person has committed to go through this extremely exhausting experience. Professional athletes compete for trophies and money; amateur runners frequently do it for a charity or to enhance their physical and emotional stamina. Anyway, there’s a special inner motivation that pushes people to run the extra mile, then another one and one more, until they cross the finish line.
In fact, motivation is essential not only in sports but also in careers. Regardless of our daily work routines, all of us should recognize how every task we complete adds value to our companies and how the entire society benefits from it. For example, if you work in the consumer goods industry, think about all the lives you touch via the products your company produces. When you’re aware of the contribution your work makes to society, you may change your attitude toward it and fall in love with your job. Eventually, your motivation will help you reach your end goal in the same way as it drives marathoners to the finish line.
3. Discipline
Imagine that you’ve decided to run a marathon for the first time. It’s highly unlikely you’ll be able to run the entire distance straight out of the gate. To make it happen, you’ll need to invest time and energy into intense training and maintain a strict regimen in terms of diet, sleep, etc. In fact, marathon runners are exceptionally disciplined individuals – they track their miles, time, heart rate, calories, hemoglobin, and other information to improve their performance. They keep a diary of results and do their best to beat their previous records.
Transferring this disciplined approach to the workplace can be useful for a number of reasons. First and foremost, a work plan (or action plan) allows you to keep track of your progress and highlight opportunity areas you need to work on. Second, it can be especially helpful during promotion discussion – if you have recorded all your achievements, you can present them to a manager to emphasize the strength of your candidacy. The point is that in a marathon race, the results are reflected on a scoreboard, but in the business world, you will often be in charge of tracking your results and presenting them for recognition.
4. Persistence
Training to run a marathon takes a huge amount of physical, mental, and temporal resources. No matter how bad the weather is, athletes get out of bed and train. They start with a short distance but constantly push themselves to the next level, gradually increasing the distance and strengthening their bodies. Each time they decide to go an extra mile or run quicker, they have to leave their comfort zone. It takes time, and it can be painful. However, in order to take their results to the next level, they consistently have to overcome physical and emotional obstacles.
The same principles enhance careers. No major career-related achievements appear out of nowhere – they are the results of discipline, persistence, determination, and consistent hard work. Those people you observe in leadership roles are there because they have been willing to take additional responsibility, work on a challenging project, or sign up for extra training. Like professional marathoners, top performers in the corporate world aren’t afraid to leave their comfort zone to up-skill and keep progressing.
5. Teamwork
A variety of running clubs provide opportunities for athletes to train in teams. Indeed, spending time with like-minded people who have similar goals and inspiration is of great benefit. Those who prefer to train in groups find this experience extremely useful because they receive incremental support and motivation from peers, which allows them to push themselves further.
Learning how to motivate others is key to a successful career in the corporate world. In most working environments, you have to be part of or lead a team. Moreover, the further you progress in your career, the more your success depends on your team’s performance. Therefore, the ability to inspire your teammates to work toward common objectives, no matter what challenges are ahead, is a critical skill that will take your career to the next level. If you want to enhance your leadership capabilities, then join a running club and learn from people who know from experience the benefits that effective teamwork brings.
6. Recovery
Resting is as important as training because it’s essential to rebuild muscles, nerves, bones, and connective tissue. Moreover, taking a break for a month and not doing any intense physical activity within this period is a common practice among professional marathoners. As a matter of fact, when athletes come back to their training routines after a break, they start performing better.
Like our muscles, our brains need a break to recover from hard work. We have to take vacations, period. Employers provide vacations for a reason – to recharge our batteries and distress. James Lafferty, a former PG senior executive, says, “We need to take Real vacations. A Real vacation is when you come back at work after your break, sit down on your computer, turn it on, and after multiple attempts, you can’t remember your password. That means you had a real vacation. Remember, you must forget your passwords.” In sum, athletes understand how important it is to give your body time to recover; so should you.
7. Focus
Professional runners compete against each other in the world ranking; therefore, they have to focus on both their own times and those of their closest competitors. However, thousands of amateur enthusiasts who take part in marathons don’t chase anybody – they compete against themselves. For example, for me, participation in a marathon is a race between me, myself, and I. When I run, I only run, meaning that I don’t talk, chat on a cell phone, or send text messages. I focus on my time, my pace, and the distance ahead of me. The only thought that comes into my mind during the event is how good I will feel when I cross the finish line.
I believe that focusing on one thing is valuable advice for professionals. Multitasking is a great skill, but not all of us can easily master performing two or more tasks at the same time. In most cases, it’s more efficient to complete one task and then move on to the next one. I’ve found that focusing on one activity at a time allows me to utilize my resources better in both marathon races and the workplace.
8. Learning
Crossing the finish line after combating 42.2 kilometers (or 26 miles, 385 yards) is a fulfilling moment and a great achievement overall. However, not every marathoner is capable of running the entire distance; some of them “hit the wall” and give up. Indeed, pushing the body to such an extreme level doesn’t work well for everybody. Even elite athletes have bad days and withdraw less than a mile from the finish line – we are all human beings. Nevertheless, there will be plenty of races available in the future; thus, a negative experience in one of them isn’t the end of the world. Athletes understand that winning and losing are inevitable parts of their professional careers. More important is what can be learned from that negative experience. What adjustments to the training process should be made in order to avoid similar mistakes next time?
Likewise, most of us at some point face challenges in the workplace – a project isn’t going well, customers have decided to switch to competitors, or there are internal conflicts with colleagues. Some people are very stress-resistant and can overcome obstacles and keep moving forward; for others, a permanent setback can cause serious issues. If your working environment is extremely stressful and negatively affects your health, why not consider changing it? As with marathon races, there are plenty of career opportunities outside your current office. Sometimes, when you face a setback, it’s worth taking a step back, analyzing what went wrong, learning as much as possible from it, and then starting a new journey somewhere else. As Henry Ford said, “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.”
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