Mantra Monday: Sustain....Sort of like George Costanza on the Freeway

"Sustain" is a really weird word to have as a mantra, but when you say it with the rhythm of your feet it makes you really not want to slow down. It's sort of like "quick feet" in that way.

I re-realized something over the weekend while doing a tempo run down Bayshore Boulevard.

To make a change, it requires you to be consistent and consistently working at it, which means you have to be consistent also to get better at it. Which is a very basic principle I know but one that is very easy to forget.

But it's not enough to be consistent. You have to look at all the behaviors surrounding the consistency that allow you to actually *be* consistent. All the things that *support* your consistency.

For instance, if you're doing a tempo run to eventually become faster you have to "sustain" that pace for a long period of time. But you have to consistently work to change that tempo run to longer or faster or both in order to actually be consistent in changing. And then you have to be consistent about just getting out there in the first place. Which means sustaining the motivation, the willpower *and* the pace.

The same holds true for other areas of life: nutrition, motivation, willpower.

I ran and as my feet hit the pavement all I could think of was sustaining that pace; the whole purpose of the run. And as I was repeating the word, "sustain" -- each syllable when a foot struck the ground -- this was my realization: that in order to make changes elsewhere in my life I too must "sustain."

Sustain motivation.

Sustain willpower. 

Sustain control over food (i.e. not eating my face off because it controlled me.)

(By the way, the more times I write "sustain" the funnier it looks and makes me want to spellcheck even though I know it's right.)

Sustain speed.

Just sustain.

Don't slow down. Don't speed up (well maybe sometimes speed up.)

But in the end, just go.

And find it in me somehow to sustain the ability to just go.

When I put it that way, it gives me focus. It allows me to go a cool 55 miles per hour in my life and in my eating and my willpower and motivation, without slowing down. Because eating a Twinkie (or 10 of them) would be making a pitstop, which would mean slowing down. And I'd rather be like George Costanza on the freeway, making "good time."

I applied my "sustain" principle over the weekend and stayed the course. It was not that hard. I didn't eat my face off and I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything.

I've meal-planned for the week ahead (my meals are here) and I've worked in one day for treats and it makes me feel much more in control to give myself that day. I've got all my workouts planned for the week ahead too.

Because this thing is week by week, day by day, even moment by moment.

But as long as I sustain my momentum,  my willpower, my strength, my motivation, I'm good.
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What's your mantra this week?