You can’t win a marathon with a sprint.

When you’re racing, there are two distinct distances you can race. It’s either a sprint race, or a long one. Relative to the mode of transportation, of course, but these are the two categories I’d say. Let’s call them sprint and marathon.

The only way you can win a marathon with a sprint pace, is if you’re able to keep the pace up for a very long time. It might be possible in racing cars or motorcycles, but never in a race where you need to rely on your own body power.

The winner of a race is determined from two things. 1. The pace. 2. The distance.

In life, looking at your career, social life, or anything really as a race, these two might be meddled with. Someone might get a head start. Someone might be able to buy a car for the race you have to run on foot. Someone might be lucky enough to get a shorter route to the goal.

But in general, we can only meddle with our own pace. We can work harder and longer hours. We can put in the research in to what type of social contacts we’d like and actively monitor the people we hang out with.

The point is, there is very little to do about the distance you’re running. In some cases, your ambitions are setting the distance for you, but the time frame is rarely to be meddled with. If we want a family and a house by the age of 30, we’re running towards the same goal.

How fast are you going to need to run to reach it?