I was doing my bi-weekly track workout with a buddy this morning and we were chatting about goals.
A couple of years ago I set the intention to let running teach me about goals. MAN what a fricken teacher. Especially when you test the limits in the right way.
But you know what one of the biggest lessons has been?
Missing an important goal or deadline can be devastating if you don’t know how to learn from it.
Not only that, but it can leave an imprint that prevents you from committing to your future goals.
And when you fail to commit to a specific goal, you end up flailing around.
And as my homie Zig Ziglar once said:
“Don’t be a wandering generality. Be a meaningful specific.”
If you’ve set a goal in your business to accept a certain number of clients in a month or bring in a specific amount of money and didn’t achieve that goal that month, what do you do?
Do you accept the “reality” that you’ll just stay at the level you’re at. Maybe just doing good enough to maintain the business and your current lifestyle?
OR
Do you look at the path before you? Do you examine what you did, what worked, what didn’t, and how you can do things differently? And as a result, dig back in with new understanding and keep going.
If you’ve accepted the former as your reality then you’re likely questioning your direction.
Asking yourself if what you’re doing is what you “should be” doing.
And as a result you’re likely interpreting every challenge as a sign from the universe that it’s just not meant to be.
I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t have to be that way.
You don’t have to accept defeat. Because you haven’t failed unless you choose to. You’ve only failed if you don’t learn and apply.
And if you’ve become tainted even hearing the word goal, here’s the quick and dirty version of why goals are important and what to look out for…
First and foremost, setting a goal lets you establish a direction. Without direction, you’ll be flailing in the wind. Grabbing at every opportunity in front of you and hoping it pans out.
When you get to the finish line. When you reach the deadline, the end of the day, the end of the week, the end of the year… you have a few choices.
1️⃣ – You can push harder. Clearly this is logical. If it didn’t work with the amount of applied effort, more effort must be better (yes, there is a tinge of sarcasm there:). But this path typically leads to burnout and overwhelm. To all my type A entrepreneurs out there, you know this one well.
2️⃣ – You can make it all about you and beat yourself up. You can revisit all the times in the past where you didn’t reach your goals and add one more piece of evidence to the pile that you’re just not cut out for it. You can completely retreat and go into hiding because you made a public declaration to achieve X goal by X date, but you dropped the ball. So you go into hibernation mode and avoid showing up because you’re embarrassed that you didn’t make it… again. And when you re-emerge, it’s even more painful because now you’ve wallowed in the agony of defeat way too long.
3️⃣ – You can look at the path before you. You can see where you came from, what your pace looked like right after you set the goal, how well you tracked your progress, how well you utilized your time, how much you lived in the state of feeling your goal already done vs. trying to get out of the situation you’re in. And then sit your sweet ass down and go back to the drawing board.
Clearly the third option is the way to go. But it’s not always the path we choose.
AND… it is possible to get back in the game and rekindle the fire that fuels your business AND your soul.
It just comes down to making that choice… every.single.day.
And if you want a hand tackling this, just book a time to chat and we’ll get totally clear on what’s not working and what is working in your business and where to go from here. Having a coach or mentor has been the single most valuable thing in my life and business. I don’t even know where I would be without them.
But please… ONLY book a call if you’re serious about change. Because to be completely and brutally honest, and this may sound a tad harsh, I don’t have a whole lot of patience these days for excuses.
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