In my life and work I have come across lots of individuals who undertake some form of goal setting exercise when it comes to their weight, size, composition and performance.
It’s fair to say a good proportion of those do not like to make these goals and targets too large because they fear what will happen if they do not reach them. I came across one person more recently who was put off in doing a longer goal achievement program of 100 days because she was afraid of not completing the actual program as well as the goals that she would put in them.
Now don’t get me wrong, ultimately long term success is very important and setting goals that are achievable is a large part of that, no one wants to over intimidated by the size of the elephant and end up getting nothing done, taking no action and inevitably falling short.
My advice to this is to “embrace failure”, by this I mean not to be afraid of it and set bigger targets (that are obviously physiologically possible).
Why?
Well I’ll give you and example using fat loss.
Lets say you have subject A who has a target weight loss of 14lbs over the next 6 months, more than achievable
Then there is subject B, same weight and body composition and has a target of 35lbs over the next 6 months
(Quick point - you can assume that both subjects have the weight and bodyfat there to lose without concerns for health, this is using bigger values to prove a point)
In 6 months Subject A has lost the 14lbs, great result and a fantastic effort and goal achieved.
However, on the same time, Subject B has lost 25lbs, another great effort, but fallen short of the goal.
Let me ask you this….
Which person would you rather be?
If you embrace failure and make your goals big, even frightening then I promise you that more can be achieved than you would think possible, you just don;t have to be afraid of coming up short. In both cases, the subjects have been persistent and taken action in some form each day, it’s just that Subject B is likely to be alot more fired up and excited by their goal than subject A and not afraid of coming up short.
This doesn’t mean all your goals and tasks have to be huge, after all, we just take the same small steps each days but with a bit more focus and taking more action you can achieve more by having the odd goal that really pushes you, that you think about each day, that gets you excited when you think what it will be like when you have achieved it.
And so what if you come up short if you’ve actually achieved more by working on that larger idea!
So whether it’s your weight, bodyshape, body comp, your performance in a test or sport, eating or exercise habits or for that matter something else in your life…
…make them goals big, make them exciting and see the changes come!
It’s just another game at the end of the day.
Till next time
