I used to run track in my other life😀 One key to finishing well was having a good start. If you had a poor start, it was hard to make up unless you were running a long race. When I ran marathons, the start was not much of a factor. I ran a marathon in Vancouver, BC, and there were 15,000 runners. They put you in line at the start according to your projected finish time, so I was way in the back. When the starting gun sounded, it was 15 minutes before I moved. It didn’t matter because we all had timing chips tied to our shoes, and when we ran over this pad at the start line, it recorded our start time and again when we finished. Some fast guys would take off and weave around other slower runners trying to reach the front. I was content to shuffle along at the back, waiting for things to spread out and open up before I started running very hard, which was only slightly faster than my shuffle.
Someone complimented me recently by saying that I had accomplished a lot in my life. They were a young person and interested in knowing why. I told them that I accomplished a little bit every year, and if you faithfully accomplished a little bit every year, you would end your life with a lot of things done that mattered under your name. I went on to tell them that I wrote my first list of goals when I was 13 years old, have written a list of goals every year since then, and have included something significant in the goals each year that would have eternal results. The first time I made a goal to read the Bible in one year was when I was 13. That year, I also made a goal to memorize 50 Bible verses. And I also made a goal to win first place in the Grange essay contest for 12 to 16-year-old kids. I finished reading the Bible for the first time in my life, memorized 15 Bible verses, and won the writing contest for a prize of 25 dollars.
I wrote 12 goals that first time because it seemed like a nice number, and I decided the next year to write 14 for my age. I have kept it up every year since and have 76 goals this year. Over the last 67 years that I have set goals, starting with 12 and with 76 this year, I have set a total of 2,876 goals. That list includes a lot of duplicates, but if you are faithful and do a little bit every year, it will end up being a good-sized list. I have lived a life like I ran marathons, shuffled along steadily, and finished.