The Sidelines Are Sterile

"The loser has more in common with the winner than with the person sitting on the sidelines." - James Clear

There's a version of this post where I pretend to have some deep insight about this quote, wrap it up in a marathon metaphor and serve it back as wisdom. My ego would love that. The truth is much less interesting: I've spent most of my life on the sidelines and I'm only just getting honest about it.

Not in the obvious ways. I ran the Manchester Marathon. I've kept a blog going for over a decade. I've built apps, started a podcast, tried a flip phone for a week. From the outside that probably looks like someone who tries things. And I do, sometimes. The problem is the stuff you don't see. The notebooks full of ideas I never acted on, the projects I researched to death and never started, the months I spent fiddling with my blog design instead of writing anything worth reading.

That's the sideline nobody talks about. It doesn't look like sitting still. It looks like preparation. It looks like being sensible, doing your homework, waiting for the right time. I've lost count of how many things I've "nearly" done. Nearly applied for that job. Nearly published that post. Nearly signed up for that race. Nearly is just the sideline with better branding.

When I actually did run the marathon, I finished over thirty minutes slower than I wanted in torturous heat. That was a bad day. I was gutted when I crossed the line. I'd spent months dragging myself through training and the result didn't match the effort. You know what that felt like a week later? Fine. I could point at it and say I did that. The years I spent telling myself I'd get back into running "soon," those never stopped feeling bad. There was no resolution to them, no point where I could close the book on it. Just a low hum of guilt that stuck around.

It's easy to write a post giving people advice like you're someone worth listening to. I've called myself out on that before. So I'm not going to tell anyone to get off the sidelines. I'm going to admit that I still catch myself there, dressed up like I'm in the game. Tweaking settings when I should be writing. Reading about running when I should be running. Planning the blog post instead of sitting in the chair and typing it.

The difference between the loser and the person on the sidelines isn't courage or motivation or any of that. The loser just stopped lying to themselves about being ready.