No Self Control - Sir Peter of Gabriel

Taken from his ‘Melt’ album of 1980, this brilliant song features Phil Collins on drums and Kate Bush on backing vocals so it’s well worth another listen if you’ve forgotten just how good it was and you’ll also get the gist of today’s blog from the lyrics.

‘Self-Control’ has been the vital ingredient in my running achievements over the years and having been someone with ‘No Self Control’ in my 20’s it’s fascinating years later why I didn’t feel the need to rein in my behaviour back then.

Got to get some food, I'm so hungry all the time

I don't know how to stop, no I don't know how to stop

You see, I believe ‘Self-Control’ is about consistency. Then again, having ‘No Self-Control’ could be deemed as being consistent - ‘consistently inconsistent’. Every day being a carbon-copy of failure, repeatedly making the same mistakes, falling down the same open man-holes, time-and-time again.

Sadly, a day, a week or even a month isn’t enough time to say you’ve become positively ‘consistent’ in my opinion, and it’s probably 365 days before you could say that you’ve been ‘consistent’ at anything.

Got to get some sleep, I'm so nervous in the night

I don't know how to stop, no I don't know how to stop

If you are training for the Event or a lifetime PB, ‘Self-Control’ affects every aspect of your life – or it should. Sleep is a huge factor in being at one with yourself. The lack of it can crush your expectations and if you are ‘nervous in the night’, there’s hope as running 80-100 miles a week is the best natural sleeping draft I’ve come across – that and having two children under three!

Got to pick up the phone, I will call any number

I know I'm gone too far, much too far I gone this time

And yet we don’t call, we don’t shout out to anyone, we wait for things to become ‘Critical’ instead of ‘Acute’ before we start fixing them. How many times have you heard of folk leaving an illness for too long before going to their Doctor to be told it’s too late for a cure?

It’s the picking up the phone moment of weakness that none of us like yet it’s the moment that ‘No Self-Control’ becomes ‘Self-Control’. My world became a whole lot brighter on April 20, 1992 after I made my call. Hitting the ‘Panic Button’ doesn’t create ‘Panic’ it stops the ‘Panic’ and asking for help is actually a very strong thing to do. You’ll find the right people are always only too happy to help. I mean it’s part of our DNA to help and be a good Samaritan, isn’t it?

And I don't want to think what I've done

Let’s be honest, we all have things that we regret when we’ve been ‘Out of Control’ with ‘No Self-Control’. The thing is that we start every day with a clean slate and the opportunity of living life with a set of rules that will help us take control of our lives, for a lifetime.

So, when folk say, ‘I don't know how to stop’, well they probably do, it’s just that they have ‘No Self-Control’ and lack the positive ‘consistency’ that giving your ‘Remote Control’ to someone else to operate can produce.

With Christmas and the New Year on the horizon to trip you up, maybe 2018 heralds a new YOU - back in the driving seat, filled with 'Self-Control'...

Rory Coleman - rory@colemancoaching.co.uk

1,005 Marathons - 245 Ultras - 14 Marathon des Sables - 9 Guinness World Records