Overcoming the "Parabilio" Curse

For those of you who don't know Harry Potter "Parabilio" is the curse that paralyzes. Okay "paralysis by analysis: is one of my favorite terms to use. I don't know why, i couldn't tell you. It's just so catchy and clever that I enjoy hearing it and using it. With that said this post really does have to do with paralysis by analysis or in other words how we sometimes have the tendency to over-analyze a situation so much that we don't get anything done and we are "paralyzed" by our tendency to over "analyze". Most of you know what that means, but for our readers who didn't know, well, you just learned something.

This post was inspired by a blurb I found in the Runner's World Racing News that I love reading. (That's how I stay updated in the running world.) The blurb was from an article about Toby Tanser who wrote one of my favorite book More Fire: How to Run the Kenyan Way and here it is:

"'A Bad Day Is Just a Bad Day,' Toby Tanser Has Learned
Tanser is the founder of Shoe4Africa, which has gone beyond the limits of its original mission to donate shoes to would-be runners in Africa and now stages road races to promote AIDS awareness and educational projects and which is in the process of constructing a school …and then, the largest public children's hospital on the continent. The interview at "More" discusses all of that, and instructs you on how to make donations, but it also includes some of the knowledge Tanser accrued from his training in Kenya. "When I coach Western athletes and somebody runs badly in the group, they go home to the Internet and research. Then, they come back to me and say, 'Maybe I have an iron deficiency, or maybe I have something else going on.' And I tell them, 'You had a bad run. You’ve had good runs, too. Just accept that you had a bad run and don’t think about it too much,'" Tanser tells us. "The lesson is not to over-think, not to over-analyze, to not look for what doesn’t need to be discovered. Africans are very philosophical in just accepting life as it goes.""

I think I have a tendency to do this. Yes, I think that small things can turn into big things. Obviously if you have a pain that's been going on for several days then that's something to research and go to the doctor about, but there have been times when I have had bad days and I start freaking out thinking there's something wrong with me.

Many times it has been that I didn't get enough water, or enough sleep, or my workout two days ago affected my workout that day because it took longer to recover than I thought it would and the list goes on.

Moral: Don't paralyze yourself by over analyzing. Take one day at a time. Step back, breath, in through your nose until your chest is full to maximum capacity then out through your mouth. That's something that helps me run fearless. Go, and run fearless!