Worrying Less, Demystifying Happiness, Running Faster
Thursday Three: Episode 3
read time 3 minutes
Here are three interesting ideas you won’t find doomscrolling.
TL;DR
Why you should stop worrying about random stuff
Why happy people are happy and miserable people are miserable
How to become a stronger runner from the 9th fastest two miler in the nation
Why you should stop worrying about random stuff
Mark Twain once said…
I am a great man and have known many troubles, but most of them never happened
Oftentimes, our biggest fears come not from realty, but from our imagination.
Our minds wander.
We think of best case scenarios and we get excited.
We think of worst case scenarios and we stress ourselves out.
It’s undoubtedly healthy to think through best and worst case scenarios when we make decisions. But it becomes a problem when we OVER INDEX on the negative.
Why stress about something that hasn’t even happened yet?
Even if the worst possible thing happens, everything in life has a purpose; people, situations, emotions. They all add value to our lives and allow us to grow.
So be your own advocate and realize this.
You can make any experience a learning experience.
Why happy people are happy and miserable people are miserable
Let’s do a quick exercise—I learned this from a Tony Robbins video my fiancé sent me…
Look around your room and find everything that is brown. Good?
Now close your eyes, and list out all of the things that were red. Probably challenging, right?
Now open your eyes again, and find everything that is red. Probably found more red this time, right?
Why is that? Because you were looking for it. Once you develop a belief, you find what supports it.
I bet you found some beige stuff and called it brown and some burgundy stuff and called it red, just to make yourself successful. And it makes sense! You just wanted to reinforce that belief.
The lesson here is if you think you’re messed up, you’re going to find ways to reinforce that—whether it’s true or not. You’ll find ways to reinforce what you believe.
The takeaways here?
Identify as a happy person: If you consider yourself a happy person, you’ll find ways to reinforce that belief.
Control your environment: Don’t hang around miserable people and do things that you know are going to make you miserable.
Control your inputs: If you consume negative content on Facebook or Instagram, these platforms are going to CONTINUE to feed you information that reinforces (the way they think) you feel and (what they think) you believe.
How to become a stronger runner from the 9th fastest two miler in the nation
My friend (and fiance’s cousin) was the #9 two miler in the nation during his senior year of high school. When I was training for the Marine Corp Marathon back in 2020, he sent me his training program that helped him get there.
I followed the plan religiously in my training. The only change I made was increasing the distances for my Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday runs.
I plan on using it leading up to the Iron Man 70.3 I’m doing in June.
Monday
6 x 400 m
Notes: Maintain a pace where you can drop time each lap. Couple of minutes of rest between reps. Last 400 all out, everything you have. In my opinion, this is the bread and butter workout period. Nothing beats 400 repeats if you want to get strong at running.
Tuesday
4.5 - 6 mi run
Wednesday
400 m
2 x 200 m
400 m
2 x 200 m
400 m
1 min rest between 200s, like 2 or 3 min rest between 400s.
Notes: Last 400 all out, everything you’ve got left.
Thursday
4.5 - 6 mi run
Friday
8 or 10 x 200 m
Notes: Short rest in between, staying consistent with good effort. Last 200, all out, everything you’ve got left.
Saturday
Long run. At least 6 mi
Sunday
Mandatory rest
Austin’s Recommendations
There’s nothing I nerd out on more than personal finance. Okay, maybe CrossFit… But I love jamming on personal finance too.
If you’re semi-interested in personal finance, you’ve heard of Mint—Intuit’s budgeting app they recently decided to shut down, which left me scrambling to find a new app!
Luckily, my boss is a huuuge personal finance guy and recommended I check out Monarch Money. So I used it for a month and fell in love with it. They make it super easy to categorize transactions and track your net worth.
I actually like it better than Mint.
If you want to try it out, Monarch is is offering a free 30 day trial. Grab it below and let me know what you think.