In Haruki Murakami’s book, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, the man famous for his novels talks about another passion of his: long distance running. In the book, he catalogs his training regimens for himself and his readers, logging hundreds of miles each month, running roads all over and in all different climates, including Hawaii, Boston, Athens.

Though Murakami runs races, most of the book is devoted to training, or as I think of it, the practice of running. What does it take to run marathon after marathon — or write novel after novel — as Murakami has? Turns out, many of the same rules apply across disciplines.

I compiled a list of observations that I think apply to building any sustained, lifelong practice.

1. Find the thing that eases your discontent…and devote yourself to it.

“When I’m criticized unjustly (from my viewpoint at least), or when someone I’m sure will understand me doesn’t, I go running for a little longer than usual. By running longer it’s like I can physically exhaust that portion of my discontent.”

2. Train yourself to become rigorous.

“The most important task here was to let my body know in no uncertain terms that running this hard is just par for the course.”

“You’ll naturally learn both focus and endurance when you sit down every day at your desk and train yourself to focus on one point…. Gradually you’ll expand the limits of what you’re able to do. Almost imperceptibly, you’ll make the bar rise. This involves the same process as jogging every day to strengthen your muscles and develop a runner’s physique. Add a stimulus and keep it up. And repeat. Patience is a must in this process, but I guarantee the results will come.”

“Writing novels, to me, is basically a kind of manual labor. Writing itself is mental labor, but finishing a whole book is closer to manual labor.”

3. Fail. Fail again.

“I certainly don’t want to keep making the same mistakes over and over. Best to learn from my mistakes and put that lesson into practice the next time around.”

4. Learn from the past and acknowledge your progress.

“Bit by bit, I’m remembering things that took place when I was a beginning runner more than twenty years ago. Retracing my memories, rereading the simple journal I kept, and reworking them into essay form helps me consider the path I’ve taken and rediscover the feelings I had back then.”

“Rereading the article I wrote from the time of this run in Greece, I’ve discovered after twenty-some years, and as many marathons later, the feelings I have when I run twenty-six miles are the same as back then. Even now, whenever I run a marathon, my mind goes through the same exact process. Up to nineteen miles I’m sure I can run a good time, but past twenty-two miles I run out of fuel and start to get upset at everything…. I think certain types of processes don’t allow for any variation. If you have to be a part of that process, all you can do is transform — or perhaps distort — yourself through that persistent repetition, and make that process part of your own personality.”

5. Push through the pain and the excuses.

“When I’m training for a race, I have to show my muscles who’s boss. I have to make it clear to them what’s expected. I have to maintain a certain tension by being unsparing, but not to the point where I burn out. These are tactics that all experienced runners learn over time.”

“If I used being busy as an excuse not to run, I’d never run again. I have only a few reasons to keep on running, and a truckload of them to quit. All I can do is keep those few reasons nicely polished.”

6. Find your people.

“Even if the skill level varies, there are things that only runners understand and share.”

I find that last one incredibly important. When we discover other people similarly devoted to the things we love, we should cling to them. Through these relationships, we learn how to live a life that includes a devoted practice. Murakami didn’t go much into this point; he acknowledges he’s very much a loner. Still, he offers solid reflections on what it takes to build a sustained practice in long distance running, novel writing, or whatever eases your discontent.