One Day at a Time
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
One mile. One promise. One day that kept becoming another.
The life you want is built by the promises you keep when no one is watching. The day before Thanksgiving in 2024, I made myself a promise. Not for the next year. Not forever. Just for today. I would go outside and cover at least one mile. No earbuds. Tomorrow would ask the same question when it arrived. That distinction mattered because I wasn't looking for another fitness goal. I'd already run marathons and Ironmans. I wanted to become someone who showed up when there wasn't a finish line, a medal, or anyone watching. So I made the commitment almost impossible to fail. One mile. Outside. No earbuds. One day at a time.
The rules were intentional. One mile removed every excuse. If I wanted to run ten, great. Those extra miles didn't count. Tomorrow would still ask for one. It had to be outside because I wanted more white space in my life. I wanted to notice the sunrise, the birds, the changing seasons, and all the little gifts that are easy to miss when we're always moving on to the next thing. No earbuds was just as important. Years earlier, during Ironman training, I learned that when the noise disappears, eventually you have to listen to yourself. Some days I liked what I heard. Some days I didn't. Over time, I realized the most important conversation I'd ever have wasn't with another person. It was with the voice I'd hear for the rest of my life.
Around that same time, I found myself thinking about a phrase I'd heard from Alcoholics Anonymous: One day at a time.I've never forgotten it. Those words don't ask you to carry forever. They simply ask you to honor today. Forever feels heavy. Today feels possible. I wasn't trying to keep a promise for the rest of my life. I was simply trying to keep one before I went to bed. Then life interrupted the story I thought I was writing. A little over a year later, I was diagnosed with cancer.
Suddenly, the mile wasn't about discipline anymore. There were days after radiation when one mile felt like ten. Days I hadn't eaten in weeks. Days when every step hurt. There were days my family walked beside me because they weren't sure I could make it alone. I wasn't thinking about a running streak. I was thinking about today's promise. During treatment, the people in our running tribe gave me a sign that hangs in my office today. It reads, No one fights alone when they belong to a tribe.
As the months passed, messages started arriving. People weren't really writing about running. They were writing about promises. Some were rebuilding their health. Some were walking through grief. Some were choosing sobriety. Others were finally doing the thing they'd been putting off for years. Then I started hearing about other groups forming. Friends inviting friends. Families doing it together. Complete strangers deciding to keep one simple promise because someone else had quietly kept theirs. Looking back, I thought I was simply keeping a promise to myself. I never imagined other people were watching.
The older I get, the more convinced I become that the one person I can never escape is myself. My conscience knows every promise I've made. It knows every excuse I've accepted. It knows every time I've quietly done exactly what I said I would do. I can fool other people. I can polish the story. But eventually it's just me and that quiet voice inside. When that voice begins to trust me again, something changes. There's a freedom that comes from no longer negotiating with yourself. Not because anyone else notices, but because you do. Your words and your actions finally become the same. Looking back, I don't remember every mile. I remember my family walking beside me. I remember the tribe. I remember the messages. And I remember discovering that every promise I keep to myself quietly gives someone else permission to believe they can keep theirs.
What promise have you been waiting until tomorrow to keep today?
Write a future you’re excited to live.
Every future is built one day at a time. The 10-Year Letter will help you get clear on the future you want to create and remind you that it begins with the promises you keep today.
The 10-Year Letter is available for pre-order now.
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