Take a breath
I had a thought-provoking conversation with a lady last week about running (shock!). She was sharing her anxiety with me about starting my beginner’s running course in January; so many questions, who else would be on the course, where are we meeting, would she have to walk past the “normal” RunVerity runners, (as they were “proper” runners), what should she wear, would she be the only beginner, would everyone else have run before?
So many questions and I wanted to reassure her as I battered back my answers hoping I would allay her fears. I knew that despite all my assurances that ultimately, she would just have to trust me, trust me enough, despite not knowing me, that I wouldn’t put her in a situation where she would fail; but that’s a big ask when you’re stepping out of your comfort zone with all sorts of pre-conceived ideas about running, running clubs and sports in general.
As I start to promote the January beginner’s course implementing all the latest marketing “hacks” I ask myself HOW do I get people to trust me with just 1 headline on a sponsored ad?
Science tells us that the human brain can process 11 million bits of information every second, but only 40 to 50 bits of information per second reach our conscious minds; that’s such an unprecedented volume of information to take in and make sense of. We know our brain is brilliant and it has an amazing coping strategy of taking cognitive shortcuts by making immediate assumptions about people and situations, therefore we don’t spend too much time thinking about things that just aren’t important to us. These shortcuts are commonly known as unconscious bias. However, a downside of this bias is that quick assumptions can be made of people and environments that can have a negative impact on how we perceive a situation, and this can stop us doing something that ultimately, we might really enjoy.
Lack of participation in exercise studies have shown that there is still a perception of running clubs as being elitist and exclusive, that clubs were only there for the already skilled runner and that they do not cater for men and women of different levels of ability. If unconscious bias is preventing people from participating in running then what a travesty as running is about people, connections, improvement, and joy.
Anyway, back to my conversation of reassurance as I started to overshare one of my many embarrassing stories of when I first started running.
“I had no idea about running when I began” I told her “I didn’t know what the right kit was and I used to wear 2 normal bras whenever I ran, no one told me anything different. As this was normal for me, I turned up to a race, in my cotton vest and stood on the start line. I heard two girls laughing at me whilst pointing to my 2 bra straps! They thought it was hilarious that I had 2 bras on and not a sports bra”. I suppose when you know, you know!
The lady laughed at my story, and it made her feel better, I became human and not an unconscious bias of what a runner is or should be. So, what am I saying? That we make judgements about people all the time, we must, it’s how our brain survives the deluge of information, but sometimes we need to take a breath and not make assumptions about people and situations, you never know, you could be missing out on something that could change your life if look past a perception.