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Sticking to Your Goals
Carrie Fredin
I have a sweet five year old that can be a little pokey in the morning getting ready for preschool. He’s told me a number of times that he wants to be the first or second one at preschool rather than one of the last ones. I told him that we should set a goal to leave the house five minutes earlier. He was all in. We picked the clothes out beforehand, got his backpack ready, and were well on our way to meeting our goal. In the morning as we were getting ready we realized that his shoes were misplaced. As I was rushing around looking for the shoes and asking him questions he started to feel the pressure. He turned to me and said, “Actually, let’s not set that goal. I don’t care if I’m late.” Under the stress of actually meeting his goal he decided that it would be easier to abandon it. In the end, I was able to get him back on board, we found his shoes, and he was one of the first kids in his class to arrive.
The experience struck me as a simplified version of something that I’ve seen a lot in myself as an athlete and also in the athletes I coach. We set our sights high and start to chase our goals. Then things get a little harder. We encounter our first obstacle. It’s suddenly easier to abandon our goal than to stick to it. Our brain’s job is to keep us safe and its first reaction when the trials come is to find the path of least resistance. The thought of failure is a threatening thing to our brains and abandoning the goal seems like the right thing to do. However, there is a way to persevere and stay the course.
Here are some ideas to help you stick to your goal when you encounter obstacles:
- Make a plan and stick to it. Look at your week and do as much as you can to prepare ahead of time for the workouts, healthy eating, and getting adequate rest.
- Anticipate the hiccups. It’s very rare to have a training cycle without an illness, an injury or life’s commitments getting in the way. Accepting it as a normal part of training and chasing goals takes the drama out of it and helps you make the adjustments to get back on course.
- Weigh now against later. Decide that what you want in the long term is more important than what you want now. It might seem appealing to stay in bed or skip a few repeats on your speed workout. However, it’s almost certain that you will be glad after the fact that you stuck to it and pushed yourself.
- Work accountability into your life. Whether you meet a training group for your runs, report to your coach, or simply tell a family member when you have done your workout, it helps to find a way to hold yourself accountable.
- Make smaller goals along the way. Sometimes the thought of achieving a huge goal can overwhelm you. When I decided that I wanted to qualify for Boston and that I needed to run more miles per week in order to do that, I had to break it down. I had to look at what I was going to improve on each week in order to safely build to my desired number of miles per week.
- Believe that you can accomplish your goal. Spend some time visualizing yourself achieving the goal. This will wire your brain to see the possibilities rather than the obstacles.
- Create a habit of getting the work done. If you think of your workout, prepping meals and sleeping well as part of your day rather than something extra that you have to fit in you will be much more likely to get it all done. I don’t make the decision whether I get out of bed at five every morning to get the work done. It’s just what I do; it’s part of my day.
Create your own momentum and motivation by choosing your thoughts. Motivation isn’t something external. We have to create it by choosing the thoughts that motivate us. We might be waiting a long time if we wait for the motivation to find us.
These few tips will help you stick to your goals. The rewards are well worth it!
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