I was spending the evening with friends recently watching an episode of 'Ultimate Fighting.' At one point, someone mentioned that a fighter who had previously won the championship title had been beaten badly in his next fight. He'd won several fights in a row to get to the championship fight, won the title, then lost. Based on an interview we watched, it seemed that he had set his sights on the title, focused his energy on doing everything necessary to get there, but, once there, having achieved his goal, had little motivation for the title defense.
When a goal is being set, it has to be set with emotion and commitment. Emotion is important, because the goal needs to be anchored in something powerful. It's the difference in thinking, 'I want to lose 10 pounds before my reunion' and 'I want to lose 10 pounds before my reunion because I was teased about my weight when I was in school and being around those people will bring back those negative emotions of being ridiculed.' The key to finding the real emotion behind a decision is to keep asking 'why?' Eventually you'll come to a reason that has to do with avoiding some sort of physical or emotional pain.
A quick story - I had a client years ago who told me she wanted to lose weight. We worked for a few weeks, and, while she got stronger, she wasn't seeing the weight loss she wanted. She had however, just had her physical and had been pronounced in perfect health; blood pressure, heart rate, stress test and bloodwork were all excellent. I started asking some questions about her family and her health, and learned that her mother had always been on diets, with her weight always up and down. She then told me that 'all she'd ever wanted was to be healthy, without having to worry about constant fluctuations in her weight.' See where I'm going? She'd already achieved her true goal of being perfectly healthy! Changing her weight was actually something she did NOT want to do, even though she thought it was.
When you set a goal for yourself, I recommend three steps. First, ask yourself 'why?' until you get to an emotional, pain-avoiding reason for setting it. Second, write down the goal, and the date you'll achieve it by, and post it somewhere you'll see it daily. Third, tell people close to you about the goal you're working to achieve, so that you're accountable to others, as well as yourself.
Oh - in keeping with the topic, I have set a goal of running a half-marathon in June. It is something I have never done, and I'm starting the 12 week-training program 4 weeks late. But I'm telling you anyway! So ask me about it! Guilt me into running if you have to!
- A
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