What do you think?

Recently I was talking with some friends about the problem with motivation. John Maxwell would say "there is no such thing as motivation...whatever you need to do, just do it." Nike says "Just do it" when it comes to physical training. Lace up your shoes, hit the trails, and log the miles. Something in their ads obviously appealed to vast numbers of people who, whether exercising or not, wanted to wear Nike shoes. And the slogan, "Just Do It" became applicable to motivating athletes and motivating people in many areas of life that require taking initiative.

My friends and I wondered if it is always appropriate to just do it, or, are there times when that thinking does more harm than good. The thing is, there are many times that no matter how much I say "just do it" - I don't. I don't want to, I don't feel like it, you can't make me. I can't make me, or so it seems. And what really needs done isn't.

A few years ago I was training for my first marathon with the help of the book, The Non-Runners Marathon Trainer, a 16 week, four-day-a-week workout plan to help even the nonrunner cross the finish line at 26.2. Based on a marathon class offered by the University of Northern Iowa, approximately 200 students, all first time marathoners, crossed the finish line. The book offers nutrition advice, weekly running schedules and motivation techniques in a week by week, chapter by chapter format taking the runner from day one, three miles through race day preparation and celebration.

The most significant technique I learned in this program was the motivation technique in Week Two - Focus on the Positive, or "...but it doesn't matter." Admittedly, if you are not a positive person to begin with, staying positive in marathon training is exceptionally challenging. Recognizing that some beginning runners might tend to discount their efforts, the authors urge all the runners to develop a positive attitude. And if you don't naturally have one, they recommend using the following phrase whenever you catch yourself thinking or saying something negative: "...but it doesn't matter."

I began to practice that technique during my training runs. I'm facing a hill, it's going to be hard to run up it, I don't feel like trying, "...but it doesn't matter", and I run up the hill. Temperature, humidity, early runs to beat the heat, the price of Power Gel, "...but it doesn't matter" because I am doing this anyway.

To quote the authors, " It is very difficult to develop this attitude about training if you don't develop it in other aspects of your life. So we want you thinking "...but it doesn't matter" if you happen to slip and say something like "My boss is really getting on my nerves today,"...if we can develop a view of ourselves that includes the idea that we routinely overcome WHATEVER obstacles we face, we will, in fact, overcome most if not all of them."

I began to find myself saying things like "There are a lot of hills on this road, but it doesn't matter...", "But it doesn't matter that my running partner wants to do a track workout today and it's 95 degrees and 90% humidity, I'll go anyway."

To me, there's a profound difference between "...but it doesn't matter" and "Just Do It". That difference being we give ourselves room to consider what is going on, what we think about it and then make a choice to be an overcomer. "Just Do It" thinking implies there is no validity to our resistance...perhaps causing us to miss an important underlying issue.

Now I realize that simply saying something - whether "...but it doesn't matter" or "Just Do It" in and of itself changes anything. I know when I am resisting something. If I stop and think about it, I can figure out why. If I cannot figure it out on my own, I ask for help. The truth is, sometimes it just doesn't matter, I just need to do it!

Which do you prefer? "...but it doesn't matter" or "Just Do It". Why?