In my job as a Career Coach, when guiding a client who’s trying to figure out what work they want to do next, I ask them about peak experiences. When was a time they felt fully immersed? Tending a garden, training for a marathon, hiking Machu Picchu. Or eating ice cream on a hot summer day. And then I ask why.
Photo from The Anonymous Project
Crossing the finish line when I completed my first half-marathon. It was something I couldn’t have fathomed doing a couple of years earlier. When I registered, I had only ever run five miles. And that I had done exactly twice.I had set a goal and accomplished it. I no longer run (recurrent foot injuries, so I’ve switched to cycling), but I’ll never forget that feeling.
The culmination of a successful dinner party or luncheon is a coda to a type of peak experience as well. Something about all of the love shared among my friends, some of whom may only have met each other that evening.
Tell me more about the feeling when you crossed that finish line.
Remembered like it was yesterday (when it was actually 12.5 years ago). My hip started bothering me a week or two before, so I thought I’d run what I could and walk the rest. But I wound up running the whole thing! The crowds, the other 30,000+ runners and walkers, the bands, the lap around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway–everything just built up that moment I crossed the finish line and a volunteer placed a medal around my neck (all finishers receive one). My heart swelled with pride and accomplishment. I was probably grinning for weeks! Seriously, I closed on my first house the week before, but that paled in comparison to this formerly morbidly obese and completely unathletic teen finishing something she couldn’t have fathomed back as a 17-year-old. I felt like I was capable of anything that moment!
Such a vivid memory. And I’m imagining that you’ve drawn strength from it many times since then.