Breaking Loose

Lessons From A December Challenge

I was desperate – locked in place and frustrated. No book hacks, self-help podcasts, or personal commitments could shake me free from the years-long rut that clung to my life like a hoe dragging through tough soil.

There were things I couldn’t do anymore – not excuses, but legitimate reasons I was boxed in. I couldn’t wake up early and run miles from my house before dawn, as I had always loved. The kids were too young for that yet. I couldn’t cram in long hours at my desk in a focused flow, oblivious to the needs of those around me. I couldn’t schedule meetings at any hour that suited me. Again, those adorable, lovable, time-sucking kids. Admittedly I wasn’t trapped, but the window to work was finite now, narrow. Too narrow for my taste, and I was still adjusting.

Are my dreams too big? My capacity too small? I would wonder too often. It was hard to unearth a clear answer and the questions nagged at me. Each day, a mystery of what I would accomplish no matter how intentionally I curated my to-do list.

It was just over a year ago when I felt this stuck. Cemented in place behind the massive boulder of my aspirations at the base of a steep incline that was life after children. I was past the days and years of pregnancy and nursing, feeling my energy return and ready to unleash it. But nothing (nothing!) I had used in the past to create momentum was working. Instead, it had been a lot of work and little movement. Me, still fixed in the same old place sorting through paltry results in the wake of a hard push.

So in November of 2023, when my friend Robin started marketing her annual 3-for-31 challenge—3 miles of running or 30 minutes of activity every day in December—a challenge I had watched her do for a decade and one that I thought was really so irritating (like, who adds more to their plate in December?)—I signed up. Fitness I could do, and I needed a distraction.

This isn’t a plot twist in the way you might be thinking. The fitness part didn’t land me on my ass the way it might for others. But what I learned in the process of this commitment shook everything loose.

To add a 3-mile run to my day without sacrificing my workout regimen and our family schedule, which was my goal, I had to get creative—reimagine my resources. The challenge quickly forced me to think differently.

“How would you feel if I ran the road in our neighborhood before the kids woke up?” I asked Aaron. “It’s a half mile point-to-point, and with the horseshoe shape, I can get to the house within a minute or so. If the kids wake up, they just have to turn on a light and I’ll come home.”

He asked if I really wanted to run through our neighborhood back and forth like a car on a track for 3 miles. I said yes, and so did he.

The first week, I hit the miles hard, bubbling with excitement about running outside again before sunrise, even if it was December. So much so, that on the sixth day I hobbled across our bedroom floor towards my morning alarm. l’ll give myself extra recovery time and do the miles this afternoon, I told myself, turning my stiff body toward the bathroom to brush my teeth.

Afternoon turned into early evening, and with it, my anxiety rose, which is notable because I am not an anxious person. I couldn’t deny that I was bone-tired and dreading the task of even walking 3 miles. You have to do this, an inner voice commanded. It’s things like this—if you cut corners by edging out on these 3 miles—that stop you from achieving your big dreams. God is watching. God knows if you are committed or not. At that, my heart rate climbed. My chest tightened. Looking at my reflection at the bathroom sink, I felt the coolness of our granite countertop through my palms while I focused on breathing. Was I panicking?

What would you say to one of your runners? Another, more calm voice asked.

Talking to myself out loud, as if I were a runner on my own Relay team, I said to myself in the mirror: “Listen, you’ve taken on more miles this week than you have in a very long time. It’s been a solid effort, and there’s no need to destroy yourself over what’s written on the calendar. I think you went out too hard. You were excited, okay? It happens. I think the best thing for you now is to rest. Take a 30-minute bath and count it as your activity for the day. Then sleep on it and see how you feel in the morning. This one run doesn’t make or break your success. It’s all the runs you’ve already done and the ones you’ll do after this that define you.”

The sound of my voice—an action, speaking out loud—calmed the simmering anxiety and dulled the lies. I felt an ease with the truth of what was said, and with it came a tool to silence the inner critic that demands perfection or nothing at all.

That night became a turning point, where I chose something that’s not as tidy as goals marked on a calendar to be ticked off just so. It’s a path that doesn’t have such clear barriers to good or bad, success or failure. I remembered that life can be malleable–a necessary re-learning as a parent–where each day is a new chance to give the best I have right now. Some days it’s more. Some days it’s less. All days it’s messier than I’d prefer, but either way it certainly makes what I set to achieve more attainable within the ebb and flow of making time for people that I love. I’ve been surprised by the power of this shift and the confidence that’s come since.

Confidence, I’ve found, is a mighty force to move stubborn boulders. I take it where I can find it now, like in the easy win of a fitness challenge to remind myself how powerful I am.

Momentum doesn’t always come from the new thing added in an effort to level-up, though that is needed at times. Momentum can come too from the age-old thing that’s always worked, approached with a fresh perspective.