Imagine if you will, standing at the bottom of a tall spiraling staircase and as you look up and as far as you can see there are just stairs and stairs and the top is beyond your vision.

Think for a second of all your goals you have in life and in running you wish to achieve. Maybe you want to get that college degree, maybe you want to make that big career change you have always wanted, maybe you want to run your first marathon or perhaps your goal is to someday qualify for Boston. These are all just examples, the truth is you are the only one who can decide what it is you want. Have you got it? It can be more than one goal, it can be two or three or twenty. The choice is yours.

Whatever your goal is,  lets say I told you your goal or goals you now have in your mind are all attainable, you just have to climb this staircase to the top. Would you?

Chances are you said yes, let’s do this, of course. All I have to do is climb? Step by step? Lets go. So you start climbing step by step, congratulations!!  Sometimes this by far is the hardest part, deciding to try. As you climb it starts to become a little hard like everything I guess you try to start. But as you keep going you find it becomes easier and you soon find yourself in a rhythm and it becomes easier floor to floor. Then it starts to get repetitive and you start to get impatient or bored. Isnt this how life is sometimes? Along the way at each floor are doors and you sometimes stop at a floor and open a door and inside these doors things look rather great inside. After climbing and climbing and feeling tired you think maybe I should stop and just settle for whats in this door because although it isn’t my goal waiting for me at the top it looks like it will do. Some of you will go inside and stay awhile and some will not let this temporary oasis detour you from that goal waiting for you at the top of your staircase. The ones who stay inside these doors sometimes stay forever and although they know in the back of their head they wish they would have kept climbing they never do have the courage to step out of that door and continue climbing.

As you keep climbing some of you will get tired and think to yourself,  “I Cant go anymore, I am so tired” You think maybe you should give up and you struggle mentally and physically but you keep going. Then something amazing happens and you take a look up and you can see your goal or goals and it’s just about there, you just have to climb a little more and you go hard and all of a sudden you have all the energy in the world, the adrenaline has kicked in and you are there. You take your last step and as you approach your goal that lies in front of you, you become proud and excited and emotional and full of gratitude for the journey, for believing in yourself and having the courage to continue when you didn’t think you could. You look down and its a long way down and you see where you came from and in that moment you know you can do anything. Maybe you stepped in a door for a while and decided to come back and pursue your push to the top, maybe you didn’t and just went straight without stopping. Whatever the case, no matter how you got there or how long it took you, you made it and you are there. This is all that matters.

SO NOW WHAT?

So you are standing at the top of your staircase and you ask yourself  “now what?” Well the funny thing is while you thought you were at the top, my suggestion for you is to look up because as you thought for a split second you were at the top, you realize in a flash you weren’t and as far as your eye can see all you see are endless stairs all going up. This is life and important to remember. Even as you reach your goals continue to strive for more and continue to find ways to be better. Set new goals that will transcend the previous ones. Your staircase of life should always go up and your goals should always continue to be greater. You should always continue to reach for the stars.

So my suggestion to you? Keep striving and shooting for the stars. Everyday when the sun rises you have a choice to look up and take your first step up your stairacse of life. It takes courage and you may be scared but life is meant to be lived and you will begin to really live life when things are uncomfortable.  Always do what you are afraid to do.

Keep looking up and I will see you at the top.

Ryan