Marathon Training and Your Career Path

On how ICT Bob and his literary Alter Ego, George Louis, discussed the process of marathon training as a symbolic representation of a career path.

Bob: "Dude, these stats are coming up nicely."

George Louis: "Do you mean your running stats, my dear colleague?"

Bob: "Yeah, I started running 200 mts. and being out of air, panting and gasping. Now I'm up to a full kilometer and still feeling ok."

George Louis: "Nicely done. And how did you get to that point, if I may ask?"

Bob: "Well, see, before I was just running, trying to do it for as long as I could. But then I read some stuff online, and apparently there's a method to it."

George Louis: "Hm. So you would say you organized your running activities to do it in a more systematic way, with a general goal in mind?"

Bob: "Yeah, well, I guess that's another way to put it. The thing seems to be that, instead of running once until you are exhausted, you have to do a "walk-run-walk" kind of thing. And it seems to pay off."

George Louis: "Would you care to elaborate, my friend?"

Bob: "It's like, you walk for four minutes to warm up, then jog for 60 seconds, then walk for 90 seconds. Then you repeat that 60 secs. / 90 secs. set five or six times."

George Louis: "I see. So you set shorter objectives that you would be able to accomplish."

Bob: "That's right. Then, the following week, or two weeks later, you jog for 90 seconds and walk for 120 seconds. And your repeat that set five or six times."

George Louis: "So you increase your levels of difficulty, taking on more challenging routines."

Bob: "Exactly. Eventually, you are moving up to your intermediate goal, which is 20-30 minutes non-stop."

George Louis: "Interesting. So you are basically building towards your ultimate goal, a marathon, by accomplishing small objectives, increasing the challenges, and conquering those new challenges too."

Bob: "You got it."

George Louis: "Just like your career."

Bob: "What do you mean?"

George Louis: "Well, in our professional careers, we rarely get our dream job right out of school, or right after professional training. What we do is we look at where we are, and where we would like to be. Then we identify what we need to do to get there. With that in mind, we set small objectives, accomplish them, take on new challenges, prove ourselves, all the while keeping focused on that ultimate goal, which is our dream job. Throughout all that time, our perseverance, commitment, and dedication help us keep to our planned career path."

Bob: "Huh, I never thought of that."

George: "Well, my friend, there you have something to mull over as you go to High Park to do your next round of jogging sessions."

Bob: "Thanks, dude, I will."

George Louis: "You are welcome, my friend. And you, our dear reader: have you thought of your career path yet?"

Bob: "Yeah, reader, have you?"

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Comments are welcome. Pity Comments* are also welcome.



* Pity Comment: a comment that someone posts on someone else's blog (normally a friend or acquaintance) so that the blog owner does not feel no one cares about, or no one reads, the original post. Term coined by ICT Bob, circa 2010.