Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

--Thomas A. Edison

To write, you must write words. To run, you must run steps.

Sounds obvious, I know, but understanding these facts was a game changer for me. I wish someone told me sooner.

For, as an aspiring writer and runner, I should have been more focused on writing and running.

Consistent practice of your craft or art is the foremost concern. Constent learning about your craft and art is important, too. But the amount of theory you gain can only be expressed in your practice.

Consistency, when introduced to the activities you want to cultivate, is the game changer.

One day I stopped all that. And came to the conclusion with which I opened this piece.

Here's my wisdom. Do what you do (or want to do) consistently.

When in doubt about writing and running, what should I do?

I write words. I take steps.

I start there. And suddenly I had a problem

The problem with this philosophy is that it takes work. And it's terribly unsexy.

It doesn't take inspirational social media posts. It doesn't take lots of hype. It doesn't take support groups. It doesn't take a fancy computer or footwear. It doesn't take a free schedule either.

It takes a crayon. It takes bare feet. It takes 10-minute intervals in the day where I stop bullshitting about all the things I need to work, and just work instead.

Work. Don't forget to work.

If you are a writer, write. If you are a runner, step.

...

My best training comes from really mundane stuff. Like taking stairs.

I work on the 6th floor at Spartan HQ. I take the stairs every single time. When I need to stretch and move and I feel like wandering around, I wander up and down the stairs.

That's a great fucking training plan for beginners, in fact. The "take every stair you see" training plan.

What's my training plan right now for a 50-mile trail race I want to run in May?

I climb as many stairs as I can each week up until I reach a goal.

Ditto on burpees and pull-ups. I perform them up to cumulative weekly goal counts.

5 days a week I do the bulk of this work. 2 days a week are for rest.

I try to tune out all the distractions that keep me from reaching my goals.

At the end of the week, I seek to have certain total step/stair, burpee and pull-up counts in line with my goals.

That's my training plan in a nutshell.

They plainer I can state it, the more effective I find it in performance and activation. The simpler I keep it, the easier it is for me to focus on achieving actual objectives.

Wish it was sexier. Wish it didn't take so much work.

Remember, plans are just plans. If you don't activate your plan, you wasted a lot of time planning.

So, before you get all freaked out about what you should and should not be doing, just do something simple.

It's not as glamours as you will play it out on social media. Never is. It's pretty mundane.

But it's damn effective.

...

Here's the second piece advice I got sooner:

Chill out.

They hype machine is there to confuse you. It's there to discourage you. It's there to get you buy stuff and stay subservient to authorities who need you dependent upon them.

Chill out, you are probably doing fine. Trust the process. Stick to the basics.

If you can't recite your basic training philosophy in a few words you are doing yourself a disservice.

The convoluted nonsense is usually for the top 1% of performing athlete. The really complicated minutia isn't meant for the beginner. It's not even made for the mid-level athlete.

Hell, it's not even for the advanced athlete.

The hype machine is for the hype machine. Magazines and blogs need to keep spinning words to keep readers reading words to keep sponsors happy.

Most magazines have been spinning the same articles for the last twenty years.

How does the business work? Every month has traditional themes, with traditional stock imagery, with all-ready written articles, by a stable of approved authors, rendered fresh by tried and true tricks editors use to get you to click on something you've already read. This all engineerred for people who fall off and on the fitness wagon so fast they can't make heads or tails of the current noise.

...

The word spartan connotes austerity and simplicity. When something is spartan, it is basic.

We get the word spartan from the Spartan people. Purportedly, the Spartans didn’t speak much. And when they did, they spoke plainly and tersely. 

They ate plainly, too. They dressed plainly.

They were focused on efficiency and utility.

For this reason, the word spartan also connotes effectiveness because the Spartan people were effective citizens and warriors. 

Apparently, keeping it simple is effective.

In this day and age, this is more important than ever. Success in fitness is most often a measure of simplicity, not complexity.

Well, sort of. Because today it's fucking complicated to keep it simple. Suddenly, it's a matter of advant garde genius to render the commonplace simply.

But work smarter, not harder, right?

Sure.

But work while you work on your work. Don't be so 'meta' you never get to the start.

The world doesn't need more theoreticians telling doers how to do what they are doing.

I always learned more from mistakes anyway. And mistakes must be made.