A crucial Life Lesson: what I learnt from a stranger on the side of the road

Do you look at sportsmen and their coaches and wish you had someone one like that by your side to help you hone your strengths and work on your weaknesses?

Or do you feel like sometimes you are not even aware of your weaknesses but somehow you know hat you could be so much better if someone only told you how?

I've been a runner for a couple of years, and it took a stranger stopping me by the side of the road and giving me some practical advice to really make a difference to the way I was running.

Sometimes it takes that external person to help you look at your weak spots and coach you and hold you accountable to reach your full potential as you can hear in this episode.

Listen to this episode to learn how someone like that can make a huge difference in your life.

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Transcript

0:06

I've been running pretty consistently a couple of times a week. Now for up to two years, I started doing the pandemic as a way to get out of my own head. When I like so many of us was facing this huge wave of uncertainty. We didn't know what the next day or the next hour would bring. And so the world was in a state of flux and many of us were trying to just find some point of stability in the craziness that was surrounding us. And I was trying to grasp it. The only thing I had control off, which was myself, And so at the time I made a resolution. I made a resolution to just run a few minutes a day. And why was that important at the time was because I had never thought about myself as a runner. In fact, I kept telling myself I'm not a runner. I don't want to run. It's going to destroy my knees and so on and so forth. But when this pandemic came along and I was grasping for something to change, I decided that I wanted to come out of this time with something new and something that I'd never done before. And so I latched onto the idea of running as a way to keep myself busy and occupied during the pandemic. So I downloaded an app and I started the cook couch to 5k program. And slowly. Day by day or actually. A couple of times a week was when I actually did it. I have all to that point that I was running a little bit more every day to the point that I got comfortable with up to a 5k, just over a 5k. No, my intention was never to run competitively. But I was only competing with myself. So over the last couple of years, as I said, I've been comfortable. Running about four to five K. Every couple. Days. And enjoying myself. And then a few weeks ago while I was running. Someone stopped me. This was an older runner that I'd noticed. Even from the first days that I've been running. And I had admired the way he ran. He was probably in his late seventies or so from what he looked, but he had the build of a young runner. The muscles were incredible. And I had been watching him ever since I first started running and even I had. Surreptitiously, he taken a picture of his back as inspiration for myself as what. I wanted my calf muscles to look like when I was older. So this guy now stops me on the side of the road and very diffidently. He asked me, can I give you some advice? And what do you think I did? Of course. I said, yes. This is the Leadership Prescription Podcast for Women Physicians. And I am your host, Dr. Asha Padmanabhan. I'm a, full-time working clinical anesthesiologist and I'm also a master certified physician coach and the positive intelligence coach for women physicians. I teach women physicians how to confidently handle. Your challenges at work. So that you can enjoy your work and have the maximum impact. Both at work and at home. And so there I was on the road in the midst of my run, stopped by this guy. And he stopped me to tell me that normally he would never presume to give advice, but I seemed like a nice person. So he decided to stop. He'd been seeing me run for a while. And he had noticed that my left leg was kicking away rather than back. And apparently that was slowing me down and was making me inefficient. He said he'd been running for over 60 years. And when he looked at me run, he felt like if I made a slight change, It would help me with my running. It would give me more power and it would decrease my fatigue. And he told me it would take some time to break that pattern that I have been running with. But if I stuck with it, it would pay off. And so he gave me some tips and he went on his way. And I was so profoundly grateful to him for stopping a stranger for doing something that wasn't even necessary for stopping me and to offer me some coaching from a long time runner. So the next week when I went running, I consciously tried to do what he told me to do. And it was so hard. I'd never realized how hard it is to break a pattern that really only had been set for two years of inconsistent running. That first day that I did it, I got tired faster, and my legs started aching way before I'd even done half the distance. I wanted to quit. I wanted to go back to my old patterns of behavior. I wanted to go back to my old running pattern and my body really wanted me to do that. It was stuck in going back into the comfort. Of my original running pattern. But every time I wanted to give up and slip back into my old pattern. I heard that guy's. His voice in my head and I try to stick it out. And I continued. That for the next few times I'd ran. It's gotten a little easier, but even now I find myself wanting to slick back. Into the easier way until I remind myself that every time I slip, it's just going to get that little bit harder to get back. And also have to remind myself that this new pattern of running is going to take time and effort, but it will pay off in the end. Because my running gait will be smoother and I will be less tired. And what this reminded me off was how often we get stuck in patterns of behavior. We have had years and years of responding to circumstances or situations. In a way that has become ingrained to us until it's automatic so much so that we don't even realize that we are reacting to something in a way. Because of our patterns of behavior. Our neuro pathways have been formed by these specific types of reactions. And we believe that's the only way that we can move forward. Until something happens or some external force. Forces us to look at things differently and maybe considered a different way that could possibly be better for us. So for me. As with running. That's something that changed was an unexpected and unwanted work situation, which forced me to look at what I was doing. And to look at my patterns of behavior. And that led me to a coach who showed me that the way I had always handled situations. May not always serve me as well. And since then each of my subsequent coaches have showed me. How I could possibly be sabotaging myself. My own happiness, my productivity and my own career in many different ways. And they have helped guide me and show me new ways of behaving of reacting or acting, which have changed my patterns of behavior. They have shown me new ways to kick my leg back. That would make me more efficient. Make me more able to handle stress, better, be able to manage conflict better. To speak up for myself and ultimately be more happy and productive. And I have to tell you it's not been easy and many times I've wanted to slip back to the old behavior patterns. But when I do, they're there to remind me to coach me and to hold me accountable. As I build my new neuropathways. As I build new ways of reacting to situations, new ways of reacting, to conflicts, of managing conflicts, better ways of communication, better ways to handle all the situations and stressors at work. And even at home. So sometimes you just need that external person. To show you. What you're doing wrong. So that you can build a better you, and you may not even feel that you're doing something wrong, but you may know that something is just not quite right. As happens when you're facing situations. At work like I did, or you just know that you could possibly be doing something differently or better. And maybe. You just need someone to show you how and to hold you accountable. And so invite you to look for that person or for those persons. Or look for that coach who will be able to show you your blind spots and teach you how to navigate around them and hold you accountable. In the next episode, I'm going to go deeper into showing you how learning yourself becoming more. Self-aware. And. Learning your behavior patterns can affect the way you handle everything specifically conflict and how you can better manage them all. And if you want to radically change your life. Then sign up for the wait list for my women physicians rising accelerator program. But I teach you exactly what you need to confidently handle all the challenges you face at work at home. So that you can, once again, enjoy work and have maximum impact. I will put the link for that in the show notes. Thank you for listening. And if you liked this, please like share. And give me a review on the podcast on apple podcasts, so that more people like you can find this podcast. And hopefully it will help someone to change a little bit of themselves. So they can be happier. And have maximum impact to. Thank you.