Setting Goals: The Blueprints for Success

One of the ways to make sure you’ll be successful in the Sedona Marathon and in your endurance training program is to have a goal. Starting a program without one is like starting out on a trip without a destination. You would just meander around. You might have a good time, but you’d never know when you had succeeded in getting where you were going. The most successful athletes are those who have a clear sense of outcome: what they want and when they want it. We’re going to show you how to set a fitness goal and get there.

If a goal seems like a tall order, you’re right. In fact, the prospect of reaching a goal—especially a big one—can seem as overwhelming as unearthing the Holy Grail. After all, a goal is defined as the final outcome, with a lot of hard work between now and the moment you reach it. Step up to the challenge! You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Before we begin, let’s define two terms: “goal and “objectives.” The goal is you final outcome; it’s the big picture. Objectives are intermediate benchmarks of progress that line up to get you to your goal. For example, your goal could be to walk one mile without stopping within two months of beginning your program. Your objectives, then, might be to buy good shoes, meet your walking partner for every scheduled workout, be able to walk a quarter of a mile within two weeks, be able to walk half a mile within one month, and able to walk three quarters of a mile in six weeks. In other word, objectives are stepping stones—small, measurable successes that add up to the big one.

Your goal and objectives will keep you focused on your workout program. Once you’re clear about what you want, when you want it, and what you have to do to get it, most decisions and choices in your life will be easier. From now on, when you encounter temptations. You’ll ask yourself, “Is this consistent with my goal?” If not it’s history. You’ll think twice before you dive headfirst into a platter of butter cookies if you have a workout in an hour.

SET YOUR GOAL FIRST

The key to setting a fitness goal is to construct a short, simple sentence that states the outcome you expect: what you want and when you want it. Keep it simple and to the point. The goal has to be measurable. For example, you could say, “I run seven miles by my birthday”. You can measure that. But you can’t say, I’m strong and fit by my birthday.” If you can’t quantify “strong and fit”, you can’t use these words in your goal. Also notice that we construct the goal sentence as if the outcome has already been achieved.

• I walk the Sedona Marathon 5k without stopping.
• By New Year’s Day, I walk for twenty minutes.
• My cholesterol level is below 200 by Feb 1st.

By stating a clear intention (as if the outcome has already been achieved), you set powerful wheels in motion. Before you start your first workout, your body mind, and spirit are on alert that things have already changed in your life, not the least of which is your attitude. Language is the force that begins the process. In fact, many beginners are able to harness even more incredible focus and discipline by redefining themselves as athletes in their chosen activity. They say, “I am a runner who runs a 10k race on Thanksgiving.” There is something transformational about thinking of yourself as an athlete instead of a “normal person” who’s pursuing an athletic activity and might feel like an impostor or outsider. More than once, we’ve been able to turbocharge a lackluster fitness program by giving a discouraged jogger a running watch (so he’ll look the part) and introducing him to people in our clinic as “Bob, the runner.” No question about it, identity and intention are mystically, yet inarguably, intertwined.

Here’s an important tip. When constructing you goal sentence, avoid using words that drain all the power and strength right out of your resolve:

WILL

CAN

TRY

“I WILL walk the Sedona Marathon 5k” means only that the possibility exists somewhere out in the future. The issue of “when” is up for grabs. You might get around to it eventually.

“I CAN walk the Sedona Marathon 5k” means only that you could if you wanted to, but you might not actually do it. It’s smug, secretive, and safe.

“I’ll TRY to walk the Sedona Marathon 5k” means only that you’ll put in some degree of effort, but have no intention of ever doing it. (“I’ll try” is a polite brush-off so commonly used in our culture that if you invite someone to join you at a restaurant, and he says, “I’ll try,” you know he won’t show up.)

When we work with an athlete and hear any of these three words, we know we are dealing with a person who has yet to make a commitment to the program and has no confidence. Before the training even begins, our athlete is making excuses for failure. We don’t allow this sort of wishy-washy declaration in goal setting. You don’t want it either.

OBJECTIVES: STEPS THAT GET THE JOB DONE

Objectives are a series of accomplishments that lead you from your present level of fitness to your goal. One way of understanding the relationship and distinction between the goal and the objectives is to think of the goal as what and the objectives as how. As we told you earlier, the objectives form a sort of progressive checklist. They can be general: citing a list of accomplishments, the chronology of which will lead you to your goal. Lots of people work backward from the goal to the present moment to design the path. For example, if you want to swim one mile in one month, you’ll have to swim three quarter of a mile in three weeks, half a mile in two weeks, and a quarter mile in one week; tomorrow you have to book your lane at the pool; today you have to buy a bathing suit; and in an hour you have to get your towel out of the dryer and pack it in your bag. On the other hand, objectives can be very specific—schedules and entries in your training log to help keep you on track workout by workout.