On persistance
On persistance
Delusional ambition, sticking to the plan, and doing it for long
Delusional ambition, sticking to the plan, and doing it for long
Jan 7, 2024
One of skills that I always lacked both personally and professionally is the complete absence of the drive to follow-through with things. I’m great at starting things, great at pushing through walls. At this age, I trust myself blindly and completely to surmount any obstacle that is in my way as long as I’m healthy and relatively sane.
But the moment I figure out the challenge, the moment I’m over the chasm and the road becomes clear, I lose all momentum and my entire will to do anything anymore. It’s not that I run out of energy. I just become uninterested.
3 months ago, I could only swim for a maximum of 50m in the pool. Said swim would leave me gasping for air like I was just ran down by an ambitious lion. 3 months of training later, I thought I’d give it a go and see where my training was. I did 600m and just stopped. To my amazement, I could have kept going. At my absurdly slow pace, I could still swim the entire Ironman course with time to spare. I more than 10x my max swim in 3 months. In that moment in the pool, I was so relieved. The mission didn’t seem like a long shot anymore. If I can 10x in 3 months, I surely can 6x in 9months.
That moment of relief didn’t last long. Today is 4 days later and the feeling is now one of indifference. Not to the value of my achievement, but to the difficulty of the undertaking that I have in had. I finally figured out the Ironman. Now that I did, it doesn’t seem too impressive anymore.
Really? This is it? It wasn’t so hard after all. All I have to do is more of this for a few more months and I could finally hear those words: “Ghaith Ayadi, You are an Ironman”
From September to October, the thought of that voice would bring tears to my eyes. There were heavy weeks of training when I crying up every single morning watching people cross the finish line. I dreamt about it all the time. But 600m of swimming was all it took to make that dream look like: “Meh, it’s kinda tough, but it’s not that impressive after all. You need to at least get to the world championship or to an Ultra. But this thing isn’t what it’s all that it’s cracked up to be”
Mind you, I know with all my heart that I’m far from having figured it out. Tomorrow is another pool session with the coach where he’s going to beat these infantile delusion out of me. But today, this is the taste that in my mouth. It’s not one of arrogant defiance. It’s one of indifference. The moment the current biggest obstacle subsided, I’m no longer as dialed in.
The past months have all been about this. Not reaching the finish line and waring the finisher’s medal. They were about proving to myself that I can build a plan to do this and figure out a way to surmount the issues. Following-through on the plans was never the point. I do have love for the game. But the game I love is figuring things out, not getting things done.
Any sane person knows that this is the recipe for unfulfilled potential. I have proven that I can put in some insanely hard work. But if I didn’t have the drive to follow-though, I need to at least build it as a habit. That’s what I decided 2024 is going to be about. There’s at least 3 opportunities that I could pursue which have a higher return than the Ironman. But If I wanted any of them to come to life, I need to build the skill of follow-through or at least the habit, or at least experience it once so I know what it’s like.
That’s perhaps the biggest reason I chose the Ironman. It’s just a bucket list item and a cool thing to have done once in life. But it’s value for me is the lesson of becoming the sort of person who sees things through.
I haven’t figured out the Ironman by any stretch of the imagination. That’s the illusion that people like me suffer from. Once we figure out the current challenge, we think all we have to do is put in the work, like a donkey. But what we fail to realize is that putting in the work like a donkey is going to come with other challenges that are also worth figuring out. Some of them will perhaps be more vexing than pool swimming skills. But since we never follow through, we never get a chance to experience them, the joys of going up against them and the energy that that brings.
Yes, some weeks and months will be about putting one’s head down and trusting the plan like I did for the last 3 months, but issues will come around and I will have to bring the brain back online to solve them. I hope to find satisfaction in that. If I don’t, it wouldn’t matter anyway because I’ll know that that’s how achieving anything is going to take.
One of skills that I always lacked both personally and professionally is the complete absence of the drive to follow-through with things. I’m great at starting things, great at pushing through walls. At this age, I trust myself blindly and completely to surmount any obstacle that is in my way as long as I’m healthy and relatively sane.
But the moment I figure out the challenge, the moment I’m over the chasm and the road becomes clear, I lose all momentum and my entire will to do anything anymore. It’s not that I run out of energy. I just become uninterested.
3 months ago, I could only swim for a maximum of 50m in the pool. Said swim would leave me gasping for air like I was just ran down by an ambitious lion. 3 months of training later, I thought I’d give it a go and see where my training was. I did 600m and just stopped. To my amazement, I could have kept going. At my absurdly slow pace, I could still swim the entire Ironman course with time to spare. I more than 10x my max swim in 3 months. In that moment in the pool, I was so relieved. The mission didn’t seem like a long shot anymore. If I can 10x in 3 months, I surely can 6x in 9months.
That moment of relief didn’t last long. Today is 4 days later and the feeling is now one of indifference. Not to the value of my achievement, but to the difficulty of the undertaking that I have in had. I finally figured out the Ironman. Now that I did, it doesn’t seem too impressive anymore.
Really? This is it? It wasn’t so hard after all. All I have to do is more of this for a few more months and I could finally hear those words: “Ghaith Ayadi, You are an Ironman”
From September to October, the thought of that voice would bring tears to my eyes. There were heavy weeks of training when I crying up every single morning watching people cross the finish line. I dreamt about it all the time. But 600m of swimming was all it took to make that dream look like: “Meh, it’s kinda tough, but it’s not that impressive after all. You need to at least get to the world championship or to an Ultra. But this thing isn’t what it’s all that it’s cracked up to be”
Mind you, I know with all my heart that I’m far from having figured it out. Tomorrow is another pool session with the coach where he’s going to beat these infantile delusion out of me. But today, this is the taste that in my mouth. It’s not one of arrogant defiance. It’s one of indifference. The moment the current biggest obstacle subsided, I’m no longer as dialed in.
The past months have all been about this. Not reaching the finish line and waring the finisher’s medal. They were about proving to myself that I can build a plan to do this and figure out a way to surmount the issues. Following-through on the plans was never the point. I do have love for the game. But the game I love is figuring things out, not getting things done.
Any sane person knows that this is the recipe for unfulfilled potential. I have proven that I can put in some insanely hard work. But if I didn’t have the drive to follow-though, I need to at least build it as a habit. That’s what I decided 2024 is going to be about. There’s at least 3 opportunities that I could pursue which have a higher return than the Ironman. But If I wanted any of them to come to life, I need to build the skill of follow-through or at least the habit, or at least experience it once so I know what it’s like.
That’s perhaps the biggest reason I chose the Ironman. It’s just a bucket list item and a cool thing to have done once in life. But it’s value for me is the lesson of becoming the sort of person who sees things through.
I haven’t figured out the Ironman by any stretch of the imagination. That’s the illusion that people like me suffer from. Once we figure out the current challenge, we think all we have to do is put in the work, like a donkey. But what we fail to realize is that putting in the work like a donkey is going to come with other challenges that are also worth figuring out. Some of them will perhaps be more vexing than pool swimming skills. But since we never follow through, we never get a chance to experience them, the joys of going up against them and the energy that that brings.
Yes, some weeks and months will be about putting one’s head down and trusting the plan like I did for the last 3 months, but issues will come around and I will have to bring the brain back online to solve them. I hope to find satisfaction in that. If I don’t, it wouldn’t matter anyway because I’ll know that that’s how achieving anything is going to take.
