Who We Wish To Become

We’re casting votes

“You may forget how far or fast you ran, but you’ll never forget how it made you feel.” 
Not Maya Angelou talking about trail running.

The sound of gravel crunching under my heels, the thrill of cupping the cold stream with my hands to drink, and ending a hike perched on my dad’s shoulders: my earliest memories are memories of the mountains. Wherever you wander in the Cape, you’re never more than 10 minutes from a wondrous patch of trail where you could potentially lace up your shoes for a walk or trot. Table Mountain towers above me today, a push notification reminding me that I’m still short of 10,000 steps. There’s just the one little thing about this mountain that gets to me: I don’t run on its trails enough. 

Momentum is a funny thing, they say, but so is inertia. So how is it that with even the most hulking reminder omnipresent, it is still somehow possible to not move towards the most reasonable goals? More so now than ever, in whichever realm of our choice, we know what we should be doing if we want success — we’ve got the books on our shelves, the websites archived, the tweets bookmarked. 

James Clear's Atomic Habits argues that chasing down goals or outcomes is not necessarily the way to go — rather, we should build identity-based habits. "Every action you take is a vote for the person you wish to become" is the essence of this philosophy, and the perfect maxim for intentional living. It highlights the idea that our daily choices and habits shape our identity and ultimately determine our trajectory. By consistently making votes that align with our desired identity, we reinforce that identity and increase the likelihood of achieving our goals. 

With democracy being the order of the day, I know what you’re thinking: what about all those votes we cast for that person we don’t want to be? Casting off these fresh votes in favour of our desired identity may feel infinitesimal — as though we’re rallying behind an independent party in a national election. But that’s far from true. We know that every mountain is climbed one step at a time and what matters is that we’re moving onwards and upwards, rather than in the opposite direction.

One way I’m trying to think about my trail running ambitions is whether there is a way to cast a big, buy-the-t-shirt type of vote for the type of person I aspire to be. This is why I registered to run the RMB Ultra-Trail Cape Town EX23 in about five months’ time. Of course, I ordered the t-shirt too.

The 23km trail starts in Constantia near the Alphen Hotel and navigates through Constantia’s greenbelts, Cecilia and Newlands Forests, through UCT’s Upper Campus, up to the Blockhouse and Devil’s Peak, wrapping around the mountain to finish at the Garden’s Rugby Club. And my plan between now and then is to cast many votes in support of finishing strong around lunchtime on Saturday 25 November.

I don’t know why I’ve hesitated in pursuing this goal as it aligns so neatly with my earliest memories and current intentions. I’d love to know if there’s a bold vision you’re working towards and whether, as Clear suggests, you can move from saying “I’m the person who wants this”, to “I’m the person who is this!”  Indeed, Maya Angelou did in fact say that when someone tells you who they are, you should believe them. 

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Thanks to

Steven Foster

and

Camilo Moreno-Salamanca

for your thoughtful feedback.