Joseph Tame didn’t like running. When his friend invited him for his first run, his reaction was, “You know I can’t run. I don’t run.”
Despite that, he reluctantly went and suffered through the run.
Running was really not his thing.
What was his thing though was recording things — he’s kept a diary since he was ten — and inventing things.
It was around that time when the iphone came out, and he discovered he could record his runs. That fascinated him.
Suddenly he paired running with his love for recording and inventing things, and he became famous for strapping gadgets around his body to broadcast his runs to the world. Like this one.
In 2011, Tame built himself a social media studio that consisted of four iPhones, an iPad, iPod, Android phone, rotatable mounts, 3 WiFi units and a bird-feeding dish.
In 2012, he wore a contraption that resembled a chair that held — among other things — a macbook!
In 2014, he wore a go-pro attached to a 3-ft long camera boom on his head.
In 2015, security at the race forced him to stick to the basics — which to Tame meant a couple of iphones mounted to his chest and a battery pack around his waist.
In 2016, he wore a 360 degree live streaming camera system on his head.
When I heard this story on The Runner’s World Show, I thought it was a really successful example of the strategy of pairing mentioned in Gretchen Rubin’s Better than Before.
So do you want to stick to a habit but continuously fail to do so? Pair it with something else you already enjoy doing. To make it work more effectively, the two HAVE to go hand-in-hand. You can’t have one without the other. For example, you can pair podcast with exercise. You want to listen to that new podcast episode? Then you have to do it on a treadmill. And vice versa — though being on a treadmill is less likely to be an incentive.
Have you tried the strategy of pairing in your life? Leave your comments below or tweet me @ahechoes.
If you like this post, support the work by pressing on the green heart below.
Get my ebook “Mine your inner resources” at a DISCOUNTED PRICE for the holidays on Kindle or as PDF.
Also, check out my short story collection, “All Bleeding Stops and Other Short Stories from the Kenyan Coast” and visit my website http://ahscribbles.com/to subscribe to the newsletter.