Respond to the Conditions on the Ground

When I ran the Philadelphia Marathon this year, I had a goal. I wanted to run a personal best. I wanted to run faster than I ever had before. I needed to position myself and maintain my effort throughout the race, so I could hit my goal.

I didn’t do as well as I wanted. It was a fine race for the conditions, but that’s one thing I did not take into account: the conditions.

The day started at 31 degrees Fahrenheit, but it was even colder with 20-mile-per-hour wind gusts. It may have been 31 degrees, but it felt like it was in the low to mid-20s.

“That’s great; I thrive running in the cold,” I told myself.

But while I thrive running in the cold, I don’t know a single runner who can tell you they thrive running in the wind. I continued to try to hit my goal and personal record paces, all while running in incredibly windy conditions that made it almost impossible to run fast. I didn’t run a personal best, but I think I did the best I could for the day.

I beat myself up, thinking I could have gone out a bit slower. Maybe I could have run it a bit more tactically sound. Maybe I could have trained differently, not done as many workouts, and had a more consistent running schedule.

But it’s always easy to go back in hindsight over what could have been different.

You can set goals, but you have to adjust to the situation

I have a mantra that “this is where you’re supposed to be.”

I’m experienced enough as a runner to know pushing too hard at the beginning of a run or a race will come back to bite you later. This is especially true in a marathon. People who run their first marathons often ask me for one make-or-break tip, and what I usually tell them is, “go out slower than you think you need to.”

You also need to take into account weather and conditions. You need to consider how to conserve energy going up and down hills. You need to consider how to conserve energy in the wind, cold, or heat.

To me, applying that lesson has been a lot more than just a running lesson. It applies to workplace situations, social situations, and just trying to get things done throughout the day. Learning to read the room and a situation prior to just saying what you have to say, for example, is an essential skill.

I’ve learned that while it’s okay to have goals and standards of what you want to accomplish and get done at work during the day, it’s more important to respond: respond to your energy levels and try to pace yourself throughout the day, respond to the environment around you and your read on what’s most important and least important.

I’m also in law school right now while working my full-time job, and being responsive is more important than anything — it’s essential to work smarter, not harder, especially while balancing multiple priorities. I only finished my first semester, but what I would advise every law student is something I heard very early on that I took more seriously (although I didn’t know what advice to take seriously or not as a new law student): “the law is not the law. The law is what the professor says it is.”

This meant the professor’s lectures, slides, office hour comments, and notes are the most important part of a course. You can try to read every case you’re assigned and take detailed notes on it. You can try to use third-party study materials to supplement or stand in for your readings. I’m not saying the readings are not important, but in law school, courses tend to be very professor-specific.

Different professors zone in on different parts of the law. I felt like my professors largely talked about parts of the law that were interesting to them, which was great because they were also interesting to me! But the big takeaway for classes where the final was your entire grade is that if the professor spends three weeks going over a topic, it will probably be a heavy priority on the exam.

You can either try to do everything and crash and burn, or you can try to respond to the conditions on the ground. You can either set rigid expectations for others or meet people where they’re at and work with them.

Being dogmatic and rigid are overrated

As a teacher, I will always recall when a trusted colleague and friend told me I was too rigid. I was worried about falling behind on a lesson and not covering everything I needed to cover. I would often go too fast as a result and not respond to my students’ needs as much as I should.

I had to adjust. It was hard to break out of that rigidity because I was conditioned in my teacher training to have high standards and never relent on them. But I eventually learned it wasn’t a zero-sum game. You can have high standards and still be responsive and still meet people where they’re at.

This is a world where a lot of things can be true at once. We simultaneously need routines and flexibility to sustainably move forward with our lives and keep going, day after day.

Everyone is different, but I’ve learned that rigidity pales in comparison to responsiveness to conditions. Going with the flow rather than abiding by that dogma and rigidity is an essential skill.

Listening to how you feel and doing the best you can with the environment and the conditions is sometimes all you can do.

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This post was previously published on Ryan Fan’s blog.

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