Goals

I created a goal a while ago. My goal was to write a new blog once a week. I’ve missed one week in the past couple which I followed up with a post about Rest. I have reached a tipping point between improvement and relapse into my old habits.

You may have experienced this feeling. It’s that day you go running, but you don’t want to go. If you go running, you’ll feel great and improve. If you don’t go you won’t improve. Even worse, you will fall back from competitors who do go.

Gary Player http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Player who has taken fantastic shape of himself his whole life, makes a great point. “You have to do everything the others players do and more.” He talks about doing an extra exercise, or extra reps to gain and surpass  your competitors. Gary Player standing at 5’6″ knew he always had to do more to become a champion. He credits yoga to helping him stay fit.

David Beckham http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Beckham calls this extra effort the difference maker. What is it that separates you from others?

So what does this have to do with goals? Here’s the key. You have to run. You have to fight that inner will power and win. Fulfilling our goals spurs us on to greater goals. Build upon your successes to create more success. Another great Gary Player quote is that “A successful businessman doesn’t stop when he’s doing well”. You need to create a personal culture of success.

Everyone who knows me well, knows I’m a big fan of Test Driven Development (TDD). For those unfamiliar, we create a failing test, make it pass, and then clean up the code, such as removing duplication. Then we repeat, again and again. This is a great way to make very efficient code. I look at each step as a tiny goal. We make a goal and do what we need to achieve it and then reexamine the situation. Applying this to our lives we need to make small, even tiny goals and complete them.

The first step is in setting a goal. You might say, I’m going to walk for 15 minutes a day, or I’m going read a book a month, or a I’m going to lift 100 lbs. Setting this goal, puts you on the path for success. Each small goal is another step to bring you towards your objective. The refactoring stage is important. You need to analyze how you are doing but it’s most important to get started.

I’m still writing blogs. What is a small goal that you have?