Goals?

Goal-setting is a huge part of the health and fitness industry.  Setting goals, achieving goals and then resetting goals creates a circle of action that keeps us striving to improve.

Goals are a part of life.  They give direction to our ambitions and allow us to imagine a better place than our current one.  Without goals, we’d be left without a vision for a better future, letting the world happen in front of us as we watch and wait for lives to be decided for us.  

Maybe it’s not that extreme.  

I’ve adamantly pursued goals for my professional career.  Keeping a professional development log, having a 3 and 5 year plan and creating vision boards have been the tip of the goal-setting iceberg for me.  

While I credit goal-setting for helping me achieve some early success in strength and conditioning, I can’t help but think of the drawbacks that planning my life out left me with.  Below are a few questions to answer when thinking of your next goal.  

What happens if I fail?

Failing to reach goals is a part of goal-setting.  Common guidance is to set small, manageable goals that are easily reached to help create a flywheel effect with our goals.  This is a great practice in theory but no matter how small a goal, there will always be the chance that it is not reached.   What happens then?  

There needs to be an alternative when it comes to failing goals.  Think of every movie where it comes down to a final battle.  There is always one loser.  What happens to them? 

When I choose goals now, I let myself think of the worst case.  What happens if this goal isn’t reached?  What will I have given up in my pursuit of it? Is that worth it?  It takes time and money to pursue goals.  If goals aren’t reached, am I OK with the investment that I put into them?  If not, I scrap the goal.  

What happens to my family and friends? 

I raced an IRONMAN in 2017.  For that I had to train 20+ hours per week on top of my job and daily life.   Needless to say, I didn’t have a girlfriend at the time.  A question that I find myself asking now is, “what effect will this goal have on my loved ones?”  Am I ok with that? 

If a loved one is interested in pursuing the goal with me, that’s all the better!  

What happens after I accomplish this goal? 

Similar to a game of chess, it’s not the next move that matters.  It’s the move that happens 3 moves ahead.   Asking myself why I am pursuing this goal now lets me answer the question of where my next goal may be.  I find myself occasionally setting goals that don’t make sense to my long-term outlook simply because they’re sexy in the moment.  By answering the “what would be next?” question, I’m able to cut out goals that don’t fit where I want to be in the future, allowing me some extra time to chill out and spend time with friends and family. 

Goal-setting has its merit.  By asking these three questions, we can try to avoid the drawbacks that goal-setting can have.