I love the quote from Alice In Wonderland “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”
Now goal setting can be tricky for a number of reasons, it’s not like putting the postcode into the sat nav and it just happens automatically.
Sometimes even when you know the destination you can still end up lost if you don’t know what your doing.
Not so long ago I ended up lost while Siri told me I had arrived at my destination, I could see it but it was several fields further away than I planned.
So how do we come up with the right map to take us to our goals without getting lost on the way?
Firstly we need a master goal that is meaningful and powerful enough for us to take action.
Declaring that you are going to loses 3 dress sizes won’t really mean much when your out on the razzle with your friends, theres no skin in the game.
Personally I like to create a bit of pressure by making a commitment to reach a particular outcome.
For example myself, Maria and Kelly signing up for our recent certification that had physical requirements for us to pass.
Without boring you with the details we had to perform 200 swings with a heavy kettlebell in 10 mins alongside other strength requirements.
It wasn’t just about the 3 day certification, our journey started 9 months before when we made the decision to commit.
I’ll be honest and say that initially when I seen the requirements I was a little scared and knew it was not a case of just turning up on the day to pass.
I knew the girls were even more worried, I think they never stopped worrying to be honest.
But after finding a worthwhile goal for the 3 of us, all we had to do was work back and SCALE the training appropriately.
What’s the best way to eat an elephant?
A little bit at a time :p
So we didn’t start out trying to do the tests, we bridged the gap by consistently doing a little more every day until the certification.
We had a programme to follow, it was progressive and simple all we had to do was turn up and get it done.
Guess what?
It WORKED…
Quoting some more Alice “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”
The point being to get where we wanted to get, we had to do MORE than what we were currently doing.
I’m honestly so chuffed and delighted for the girls for trusting the process and following blindly even though they doubted their self each week (that’s why you need a coach).
Every few weeks I would get signs of an uprise…
“No chance we can do this”
“It’s too heavy”
“I don’t feel comfortable”
“Wish we had more time”
But despite their thoughts and moans, they soldiered on and never missed a session.
They consistently turned up and did the work, through tough times at work, family problems, illness etc.
During a long term goal you WILL NEVER have a clear run of things, something will always come up it’s part of life.
The girls didn’t make any excuses (apart from 1 day they went for a massage without me) apparently that was part of the recovery :p
They set themself up to win by constantly SHOWING UP.
The weekend of the cert took care of itself due to the hard work done before, 3 new certified coaches ;)
So what can you learn from this?
Set a meaningful goal with some sort of physical element a few examples could be:
10k
Obstacle Race
Kettlebell Certification (yep even you can get certified)
Photo Shoot (yep they can also work)
The goal has to be something you would really like to achieve and feel like it’s a bit out of reach.
Get it booked before you change your mind, don’t think about it just go and commit to the event, stop waiting for the right time to start as it will never happen. (there’s always going to be something you can use for an excuse)
I’ll even help you with your training programme, just email me with the details and I’ll help you plan everything out.
Then all you have to do is turn up and follow the plan, yep show up CONSISTENTLY and do the work.
Simples ;)
The journey to the goal is more important than the goal, and that’s the beauty of it.
It’s like planting a seed and watching it grow, you become more confident, stronger both physically and mentally each day.
When you reach your goal you will have learned more about yourself than you thought was possible and it will spill over into all areas of your life…
I’d love to help you get started so hit me up with your goal and let’s start the ball rolling…
If you still don’t know where you’re going…
Maybe it’s time you did ;)
Robert