How to Build Endurance for ALL of 2024
It's not too late to begin a year of growth, but it will take consistency throughout the next eleven months. Here is how to build endurance for 2024.
Before I jump into this week’s post, let me have a proud dad moment. My oldest daughter graduated from college a year ago with an art degree. One of her superpowers is diving deep into niche topics and sharing with her friends and family. Now Kessa is applying this superpower for you with her knowledge of art.
I encourage you to check out her new Substack newsletter.
Now back to your regularly scheduled newsletter.
It’s too late.
I’ve missed out. It’s too late.
Have you ever told yourself that? Maybe it’s about a career opportunity, a relationship, or a financial possibility. Maybe it’s just life in general. You’ve told yourself, “My time has passed.”
More times than not it’s a lie.
Believing our time has passed is a human tendency, and applying it to your New Year’s goals is no different. If you are reading this post as it’s being released (the last week of January 2024) then there is still more than 90% of the year left. Stop for a moment and let that sink in. There are a full 11 months of the year remaining.
That is the truth.
No matter where you are in your New Year’s resolutions (goals, Word of the Year, etc), it’s not too late. If you haven’t created a Word of the Year, it’s not too late. If you’ve created a Word but fallen off the wagon, it’s not too late. If the year is off to a rough start, and you’ve been sidetracked, it’s not too late.
Let’s get started!
There are two keys to any process:
Beginning.
Enduring.
So, if you’ve been putting off this idea of a Word of the Year, it’s not too late. However, this is a challenge to begin. Push through your fears and concerns to start the process of learning and growing through the Word of the Year in 2024.
But it also will take endurance. This is one of my favorite leadership and growth principles:
“Consistency compounds.” -John Maxwell
Most of us know the principle of compounding interest. The best investments are the ones where our money earned is earning more money. Life is no different.
Every day you stick with the Word of the Year process, it builds on itself. If you grow just a fraction of a percent today, and build on it again tomorrow and the next day, you will be a different person by the end of the year. The challenge is endurance throughout a full year. So, in this last post of January, let me share a few tips on how to endure with your Word of the Year in 2024.
If you pull back to see the forest, there are two principles to endurance: clarity and desperation. I shared these two pillars of endurance in my initial overview post on Word of the Year, but let me go a little deeper on both of these ideas.
Clarity
One of the most important pieces of developing clarity in your Word of the Year is honing in on your Word. If you haven’t found your Word yet, I encourage you to take a moment and read through the tips I shared a few weeks back on how to find your Word of the Year.
If you have your Word of the Year for 2024, that’s the first step to building clarity. Most likely, you have an initial picture of what your Word means to you. One of the beautiful parts of this process is an unfolding of ALL that your Word means, but as we stand, in January, you have a good idea of what you want for 2024.
So the next step of clarity is to have a plan of what you are going to do to grow. Again, I’ve given some great tips on kickstarting this process. I encourage you to read these posts if you haven’t or are still in the beginning stages of building your process. But in a nutshell, you take a step of faith (share your Word), and you listen to God and act on what you hear.
This is where clarity comes into play. The question you need to ask yourself is, “What is my plan to listen and act?”
As I considered this process of learning from your Word of the Year, I was reminded of endurance sports. Specifically, I was thinking about long-distance running, but as I researched it, I also bumped into endurance car racing.
This list of tips is a synthesis of what experts give to those who are starting in these endurance races (running marathons and racing cars) along with what I’ve found to be true in my life.
1. Build Slowly.
In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear tells a story about a man who was overweight but committed to becoming healthy. He began by joining a gym. As a regular gym goer, I can tell you January is the busiest time of the year. Hundreds of people will join (or re-join) my gym in January. The treadmills will be packed for about a month, and by mid-February, the numbers will be back to normal.
So, this man took a different approach.
He committed each day to showing up to the gym and walking on the treadmill for 2 minutes. He would drive to the gym, get out of his car, walk into the gym, step onto the treadmill, walk for 2 minutes, step off the treadmill, walk out of the gym, get into his car, and drive home. He did this same workout every single day. The key wasn’t the workout, but the development of a habit in his life. Eventually, he added a few minutes to his routine until he had reached 45-60 minutes at a time. The man slowly lost weight to become the healthy person he envisioned.
This man started the process slowly. He was successful because he developed a habit not because he started going to the gym.
Whatever you decide to do to grow from your Word of the Year, start slowly. If it’s reading the Bible regularly, then take a few minutes at a time to begin. If it’s meditation, then choose consistency over quantity. As you grow in your understanding and habits then it will be natural to add more time and different ways of learning from your Word.
2. Vary Your Days.
One of the articles I read about becoming a distance runner listed 3-4 different training programs. Interestingly, the programs sometimes were at odds with one another (doing the opposite of what the one said was the way to build a long-distance runner). The point of the article was to try different programs to see what worked best for each runner.
As you begin, try different ways of learning from your Word of the Year. You may find that what works well for me isn’t a great fit for you, but the exact opposite is best.
Additionally, if you have done this process for a few years, try varying what you do. I’ve found doing the same thing day after day becomes stale. When I change my approach to learning, my growth will jump in the days and weeks to follow.
That’s why I gave different ways to hear God speak. When you learn to practice all four ways, you can vary your days and weeks. When you feel like something is getting old hat, try it in a new way.
3. Create a Team.
Endurance car racing involves not just the pit crew and driver but multiple drivers over the 10-24 hours the race takes to complete. This means there needs to be a great team of people to pull off a successful race. It is very similar to your Word of the Year. You need a team of people around you to support you as you strive to learn and grow this year.
If you’ve already taken the step of sharing your Word with a friend and on social media, then you have started this process of building a team. Now continue sharing what you are learning from your Word and getting feedback from these people. The great thing about sharing what you are learning with your friends and family is hearing their perspectives on it. You will grow from their insight into your revelations and your life.
4. Be Realistic.
In his seminal book, Good to Great, Jim Collins shared a story of meeting Admiral Jim Stockdale, who was the highest-ranking officer in the “Hanoi Hilton” Vietnam War prison camp. Stockdale survived a torturous 8-year stay in this prison. What was most interesting to Collins was why Admiral Stockdale survived a near decade in the worst of situations while many in the same circumstances passed away in a matter of months.
Stockdale told Collins that he survived because he never lost faith that he would make it home, but it was the blind optimists who died before their release. It was those who declared to make it home by Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter, but remained imprisoned who couldn’t overcome the heartache of disappointment.
Growth is hard. You need to have faith that you will grow but at the same time be realistic. You will have hard days, weeks, and even months. If you can survive those days, weeks, and months, then you will find some of the greatest growth in your life.
This of course is a general life lesson, way beyond a Word of the Year. However, if you can begin to put this into practice during your Word of the Year project, then you will learn to apply it to other areas of your life.
Allow Clarity to Develop
Clarity is the first key to endurance, and while a plan will help you develop a clear vision, it will also develop over the year. It will take time, so having a plan to fall back on is important to be successful in learning from your Word. Sometimes the growth won’t be obvious, so your plan is something to fall back on.
All of this will develop a clarity of your Word, which will also help you continue to endure through the year.
Last year, I almost caused a wreck listening to a podcast interview. It was one of those moments when the person interviewed said something I didn’t want to forget. Driving down the road I tried to capture it on my phone, which isn’t the safest way of driving. So I pulled over and I wrote down what he said:
“Endurance is directly related to the clarity of our vision.” -Rory Vaden
I want you to be as clear as you can be on your Word and your plan to grow so you can endure through the year. I want you to grow through this process this year. The clearer you are, the better chance you have to make it. But as important as clarity is, there is another ingredient that can carry you through when things seem a little hazy.
Desperation
One of the things I’ve noticed about preachers is they often have their go-to stories and anecdotes. So if you spend much time listening to them, you’ll hear the same stories over and over (slightly different each time to be fair).
I’m afraid I’m becoming that preacher.
I’ve mentioned a few times my experience of traveling to Brazil to watch my son participate in a youth soccer tournament. The Brazilian players were all playing for the youth team of their local professional teams. These players were not playing just to win the tournament, but to be noticed by scouts. Ultimately, they were playing for a professional contract.
My son played with a group of American boys who were playing to win, but truly they were playing for enjoyment and an amazing experience. The difference was noticeable. The American boys wanted to win, but their future didn’t lie in the results of the game or their individual performances. There was desperation within the teams of Brazilian boys. Their ticket out of poverty sat in this tournament. Desperation drove them.
If there isn’t a drive for more inside you, then you will remain the same.
Sometimes finding this place of desperation will be easier than others. In 2011, the first time I participated in the Word of the Year project, my Word was FREEDOM. I was at a place in my life when I knew I needed a major change in my life. I was desperate to find what freedom meant for me. Desperation came easily for me in 2011 and the next couple of years. As I found the freedom I craved, life became more comfortable for me. Desperation was harder to find.
My 2024 Word of the Year is CONTENT (as in contentment…not I want to create more content, which has created confusion as I’ve shared it this year). It seems a dichotomy preaching desperation when I’m searching for contentment. But I know if I don’t learn to be content with where God has me, then I will destroy myself from the inside out.
This drives me to learn to be content.
Framing my Word in this way, it’s easier to find a place of desperation. How can you find a place of desperation for the Word you’ve chosen this year?
If you can find this place of desperation for growth in your life, you can endure some of the difficult patches you will encounter over the coming months. The more you focus, the clearer your Word will be. The clearer your Word becomes, the greater the growth you will find this year.
So Focus
Let me close this post and series by going back to a thought I shared a few weeks ago. It’s a reminder as to why and how the Word of the Year project works. It comes from a letter Paul wrote to the church of Philippi two thousand years ago. This ancient text tells us:
"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." -Philippians 4:8 NIV
God calls us to focus on good and pure things. Your Word is good. It is a gift from God. Even greater, your Word is a promise to you. As you focus on your Word this year you will grow.
It’s a promise from God.
It’s not too late to choose a Word and begin the process of growing and learning from your Word. So may you endure as you focus on one word for one year in 2024.
Writing Playlist
I don’t know if we have the same taste in music, but here are some songs to explore. All the links go to Spotify. While writing this post, this is some of what I was listening to:
07:00 the Morning Comes - Jonathon Odgen
They Want EFX - Das EFX (I’m in a “reliving 90s rap” phase)
take yr time - dad sports
Final Note:
This post wraps up a series on Word of the Year, and in February I’m beginning a new series on the promises of God.
I’d love to hear from you about what you’d like to read more about from me. Leave a note in the comments or shoot me a response to this post.
If you missed one, here are all of the Word of the Year posts: