Whose goals are you reaching?

In a conversation with a client this week I was reminded of the importance of goals. We talk about goals all the time. I don’t know if I’ve ever written an article that didn’t mention goals. Setting goals is clearly important and we will continue to discuss them. This conversation took things a step further though.

Setting goals is still the key to achieving success. I haven’t had too many people argue that. What often gets over looked is the goal itself. When people don’t reach goals they look for reasons. It is easy to just pick a goal that sounds good and commit to reaching it. What is difficult it reaching goals that are not your own. Setting goals that are not yours make it difficult to stay motivated and reach them.

Example: My friend has been running marathons for the past few years. He trains for most of the year and runs one marathon each year.

It would be very easy for me to look at his routine and say: I can to do that. “I
can do that” is one thing, but “I want to do that” or “I am going to do that” are very different things. I already run regularly. My distance is not far off from some of the training runs to prep for a marathon. I considered adopting this training plan and entering a marathon, but ultimately decided against it.

I still run. The distances and times are not going to prepare me for a marathon, but that is ok. I’m not training for a marathon. I am running because I like running. I am running because my dogs like running and we can all use the exercise. I’m not saying that I will never run a marathon. I’m just saying that my routine is not to get myself ready for a marathon.

Just like I made the decision to run on the days and at the distance that I enjoy, my client was able to do the same. She wasn’t deciding to run a marathon or not, but she was deciding exactly what she wanted to be doing.

That is the key. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to start going to the gym to walk on the treadmill or if she was going to simply walk outside. It wasn’t easy for her to make up her mind. There were pros and cons to doing both. The key for her was to think about what she wanted to do. I could’ve weighed in with my opinion, but then she would be doing my routine. If she does my routine, how does she reach her goals? She doesn’t. She needs to do her routine in order to reach her goals.

And you need to do your routine in order to reach your goals. No matter what results you are looking for, they have to be the results that you want. Only when the actions that will lead you to those results are the actions you want to be taking, will you reach these goals. This works because they are your goals.