At the beginning of the year I wrote down goals for myself, both personal and professional. Some of them seemed silly writing them down, but they were important to me. I have them hanging up in my office so that I see them every single day. And anybody that walks in the office sees them as well. I have put them out there and the weird thing is, they are all happening.
Well, it's not weird really. I learned a lot from working with Dawn Fletcher of Mentality WOD and Fletcher Fitness while I was working in her Mastermind Team. She taught me about setting SMART goals and breaking them down into steps. I have yearly goals, monthly goals, weekly goals and, often, daily goals. The weekly goals are my favorite as they are very manageable and give me really sharp focus. As long as I take care of the weekly goals, the yearly goals take care of themselves!
My weekly goals vary each week. As I am planning my week on Sunday, I spend a few minutes thinking about what I want to accomplish that week. Again, this is a direct result of homework from the Mastermind Team! The goals last week involved stretching 5 minutes every day and drinking at least one water before I drink anything else (i.e. coffee, tea, bad things :)
I've already marked off two of my five big goals, totaling at the Arnold and qualifying for the Pan-Am Masters. Not only that, but because of those two goals, I also qualified for and will be lifting at the USAW Regionals Meet in May! The weekly goals leading up to this were all directed at enhancing the big goals. One week my goal was to do 25 pvc snatch drills at least three times per week. One week the goal was to accumulate 500 repetitions of abdominal exercises. The week before the meet was really focused on hitting specific macro and micro nutrient numbers.
My fourth big goal (Yes, I know I skipped the third, it's below) was to eliminate the word "tired" from my vocabulary. I noticed that I just used that term way too much. Yes, I was tired, but so is the rest of the world! Why am I special? If I'm tired, it's because of a whole lot of blessings keeping me busy! Saying that I was tired was a way of complaining about my life and that was silly. I have a great life! To meet this goal I make it a priority to go to bed. I know what time I have to get up so I know what time I have to go to bed. There are no surprises there. I don't always get enough sleep though, but I am still trying to not say, "I'm tired". Instead, I just think about how lucky I am to be living my life, put a smile on, and rock on. While I can't officially check this one off because of the ridiculous way I worded it (really, ELIMINATE??), I feel like I am gaining major ground on this one! Weekly goals for this one included getting at least 8 hours of sleep 4 days a week, limiting caffeine consumption so my sleep quality is better and even getting some sunshine in the system.
My fifth goal is close to being marked off because I put it out in the universe. I wrote it down and things are snowballing. It is a personal growth goal (and I'm not telling you right now what it is, sorry!) and should be halfway finished this week and completely done by June or July. I'll tell you all about this one later!
Basically, the beauty of having specific goals is that it allows you to narrow your focus to what is really important. It allows you to put brainpower and effort into making your goals happen. And my favorite part is that it allows you to give yourself a break if something is not going well and you don't have to feel like you are chasing too many rabbits. If I do a workout that has running in it, I know I'm not going to do well because I've been focusing on weightlifting only. Mentally, I can be ok with not being good at it because that is not my focus. The CrossFit Open just finished and most of us walk away feeling like we have a million weaknesses. And we immediately decide to get better at ALL
THE THINGS. But it's really hard to get better at everything at the same time. If your goals are already set and your course is set, stay the course and just make a mental note that those things could be a part of your next goal list.
For me, I'm already thinking about my next goal list because it looks like I'll have most of my 2015 goals knocked out by mid-year. Being a better runner and finally learning to butterfly are lingering in my mind as options. So are some ideas about developing the branding of CrossFit Murray and Doodleturtle.
But for now, I'm going to continue working toward goal three, qualifying for the American Open. They released the new qualifying totals about a month ago and they are challenging. I may not make this goal, but I will spend this year trying! And on that note, I need to go work on my weekly goals!
If you want to really learn about goal setting and having a purposeful life, I highly recommend you check out Dawn's site. It is written for the athlete, but anyone can benefit from her training.
Also thank you to HookGrip for the awesome photo!
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