Beware of the Chair

One of my best friends Erin runs very far. I mean like marathons are a warmup. One of the things she says is to “beware of the chair.” When a long distance runner sits down to take a break, it is very hard to get up. What the runner thought would be just a stop turns into a quit.

How often do we turn a break into a quit? “I need to take a break from school.” “I need to take a break from writing this book.” “I need to take a break from this side-hustle that I hope to be my primary business someday.” Sometimes we have to take a break. The problem emerges when the break goes too long, when we struggle to get up from the chair that we sat down in.

It’s better to keep moving. I’ve talked to many professionals that are in grad school while they have their full-time job. Oftentimes there are some significant family commitments in the picture as well. They will start talking about how they need to take a break from school because the overall load is too heavy. I’ll tell them to just do one class at a time to keep their momentum going. Slow progress is better than no progress. There is also the psychological element of knowing that you’re getting closer to your goal.

If you find yourself to be currently sitting down, consider this your sign from the universe that it’s time to get back up, and I do mean today. One of my favorite quotes is “Tomorrow: a mystical land where 99% of all human productivity, motivation and achievement is stored." We love to delay to tomorrow what we should be doing today. It’s hard to get out of the chair, maybe you can just roll out of the chair onto the floor, then get your momentum going with a crawl. It doesn’t matter how, just get going.

If you find yourself to be currently going, keep that momentum going. If you get tired, it’s okay to slow your pace to a walk. But whatever you do, beware of the chair.