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I've got an Excel spreadsheet that has the data from all of my workouts since 2013. I've kept it updated on a daily basis, when I started running as a way to keep eating badly, while still maintaining my weight and overall health. Before then, I did a mix of different things, from hockey to biking to racquetball to golf, but didn't keep it tracked so meticulously.
I thought that if I was active enough, I could counter a slowing metabolism, keep the blood pressure and cholesterol down, and stay on my goal of living without prescriptions and keeping up with my kids. All while throwing down as many sodas, cheese steaks, pizza, pretzels and carbs that I wanted, because this new step would clearly make up for the rest.
The first year, I set a goal of 1,000 miles, and made it. I then added another hundred miles for the next year. I also tried to make sure that I kept doing weight training as well. With each year, I've added another 100 miles. The increasing goal has made me re-train my stride to ease stress on the knees.
But that wasn't enough. So I changed my diet to add much more water and a daily multi-vitamin. Cut my sodium intake. Increased my fruit and probiotic consumption, and started to count and reduce calories...
And all of this has worked, but not to the extent that you might think. I've kept the same weight and dimensions, had overall good health, and get a lot done. But the running has never really gotten easy, and if I lapse for any reason whatsoever, I feel it, with a quickness. Plus, my blood pressure and cholesterol crept up a bit last year.
Truth be told, I am just not as efficient as I'd like to be. Too many of my miles are walked, rather than ran. (I get cramps and hamstring pulls.) The time commitment is annoying. But I'm getting better, and have ideas for how to improve. I'm certain that these plans will change later when I fall short of my goals, because that is just what happens, and everything can always improve.
Now, the pivot.
When you do marketing and advertising for a living, and have access to the data, you are frequently able to drive improvements to the status quo. Which is, after all, the reason why a client wants you around in the first place. But the same processes that led you to the first win should bring you to the second, and the third, and so on down the line, because that's the way it should work...
Except for, well, it doesn't.
Not always, in any rate. Just as age, a slowing metabolism and the demands of life can mitigate my efforts, so can environmental factors cut into the effectiveness of your work. From client needs that run contrary to optimal engagement practices, to lowering response rates from user fatigue and increasing competition from others in their competitive space, you are rarely, if ever, going to have everything on your side in your attempt to beat the control. Optimal practices change over time, without warning. Good creative wears out, and the plain and simple nature of digital advertising is that response and engagement is always eroding, because we're always getting a little bit more of it then we used to.
It's easy, especially as the calendar goes from the start of the New Year to the cold and misery of deep January, to stop going to the gym. But if you do, your life won't be better later, and catching up may be extremely difficult. Just as if you stop trying to top the control, or try to convince your client that the new performance metrics are all you can achieve...
Well, there's probably someone else in your field who has kept doing the work, and will seem more attractive to your client. And, well, is.
Because if you don't love the journey, you're in the wrong line of work.
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