Adjusting Your Goals

I recently completed the White Rock Marathon in just under four hours. There is good news and bad news in that statement: the good news is I finished; the bad news is it took me four hours (which is 30 minutes slower than what I trained for and was expecting).

Here are some lessons I learned about goals (and missing them) during my fourth marathon:

Adjust Your Goals on the Fly

I was cruising and ahead of my goal pace all the way until mile 17. Then disaster struck. I felt a sharp pain in my right knee and my legs began to feel like mush. It was pretty obvious that a 3:30 marathon was not going to happen.

Let’s be honest: there will be times in your life that you will not reach your goals. So what do you do? Do you get depressed and feel like a failure? Do you quit? No—you adjust your goals.

It may not even be a matter of adjusting your goals. It could be layering your goals. For example, my number one goal for the White Rock Marathon was to not wind up in the medical tent (which happened at the Austin Marathon last year); the second goal was to finish; the third target was to run it in 3:30. So with the layered approach I actually attained my first two goals; it was only the third and final “stretch” goal that I missed.

Let’s be clear: it’s important to set goals for you, your family and your employees. And those goals need to stretch you. However, don’t be a slave to the goal: give yourself some flexibility and adjust if you run into problems outside your control.

Analyze Why You Missed Your Goals

Immediately after finishing the marathon and missing my target time I began to ask questions. What went wrong? What mistakes did I make? What could I have done differently?

If you missed a goal, you should analyze why you didn’t reach it. That involves a lot of questions (both to you and others). For example, I went to multiple online running groups and posted questions about what went wrong. I received a great deal of advice from fellow runners.
If your goal is work related or family oriented and things didn’t go the way you wanted it to, ask others for their thoughts. There are probably others that have walked similar paths you are currently undertaking. Pick their brains. Don’t just sit back and settle for a missed goal: research what you can improve.

Never Give Up

After the knee injury at mile 17 I hit the proverbial marathon wall at mile 20. Not only was my knee hurting, my legs absolutely left me. I had a choice to make: quit or keep going. There will be times in your personal and professional life you’ll have a similar choice to make.

Even if you aren’t able to hit your goal, you should never give up. That is a key Think Huge principle. No matter what is happening, don’t quit. Even if you can’t make your target, finish the task. If you don’t finish a marathon, there is a “DNF” on the results next to your name. That stands for “did not finish.” Don’t ever let there be a “DNF” next to your name with any life goal you set.

Life is like a marathon—there will be times when you don’t hit your goals. But instead of just stopping and feeling sorry for yourself, adjust your goals; analyze why you missed your goals; and never give up.

Think Huge!

Comments

[Dan]

If you'd like a tool for setting your goals for 2010, you can use this web application:

http://www.Gtdagenda.com

You can use it to manage your goals, projects and tasks, set next actions and contexts, use checklists, schedules and a calendar.
A Vision Wall (inspiring images attached to yor goals) is available too.
Works also on mobile.

[Mark Arnold]

Dan: Thanks for suggestion about managing and tracking your goals. I've checked out the suggested site and Gtdagenda seems like a very robust tool.