Can You Go the Distance?

I recently returned from a road trip that spanned over 4000 miles. It was a month-long journey that included many days of driving to targeted destinations, plus several side trips. The main point of the trip was to see my relatives and a few friends who live in the northeast U.S.

When I describe the trip to people, they often exclaim, “Wow, that’s a lot of driving!” It’s true, 4000 miles is a lot of ground to cover, even over the span of the month it took to complete the trip. Having done a similar itinerary more than a handful of times, however, I don’t find the driving to be all that troublesome.

But this was not always the case.

When I lived in northern Virginia, I felt that my Pennsylvania and Ohio relatives’ homes were oh-so-far away. I didn’t make the trip to see them as often as I could have, mostly because I found the drive exhausting. I remember that I often struggled with the last half hour of my return journey, feeling as if I was never going to get home.

What changed my perception about traveling by car was moving to Texas. I clearly remember my first drive from Virginia to Texas. When I crossed the Texas line. I thought, “Yay, I’m in Texas! I’m almost home!” But what I failed to realize was that I still had five and a half hours of driving left to do!

Nothing, it turns out, is nearby my home in Austin, Texas. I realized this when I remembered that in the three and a half hours it took to drive to my Pennsylvania family, I would cross at least two state lines and sometimes three, depending on the route I took. From Austin, three and a half hours wouldn’t even get me out of Texas, no matter which direction I traveled.

My perception of “nearby” and “far away” were no longer that same after I moved to Austin. If I wanted to go to a nearby city, I had to drive at least an hour or two. If I wanted to visit my family in Pennsylvania, the trip was now 24 hours. The change for me was dramatic.

When we think about what is difficult or tiring or lengthy, our perception primarily comes from our previous experiences. Before moving to Texas, I felt 3-4 hours was a long way to drive because that was about the farthest I was willing to drive before I found the drive to be onerous.

Once I drove the 1500 miles from Texas to the northeast (and back!) a couple of times, my perception changed. Now “far away” was anything over 1500 miles. In essence, I built my travel “muscles” by traveling further than I’d done routinely in the past. Those new travel muscles made the trip to Pennsylvania feel manageable, despite not feeling that way previously.

This idea of building our muscles doesn’t stop with travel. We build our muscles for whatever we need to do by stepping beyond our comfort zone.

Can you go the distance… or is there a muscle you want to grow?

If so, you need to start by stepping out of your comfort zone. Do what you perceive as difficult. Start small if need be, but even baby steps will get you there eventually. Do the thing you that seems difficult now and eventually you’ll find that you can go the distance, too.