Goal Setting, Goal Getting
This simple yet important exercise will give you a taste of how to find your way to Be True.
You’ll have the beginning of the list of the most enlivened and enlarged parts of your work – and this is the beginning of the discovery of your core values system. Print the worksheet below and follow along with the audio!
Here is the worksheet you can click and print: Core Values Worksheet
Often the least desirable timing for goal setting is when our minds are crowded with options.
Setting a goal, once clarity emerges, increases the chance of accomplishing said goal.
Just a thought…
Last week I shared with you a challenge that my trainer Rob Maximus MacDonald created. Here’s the challenge:
When in the moment of being on the edge of your best effort and energy is starting to wane, push harder. Throw down any hammer you have left and see what that extra kick does for your performance.
I tried it. Did you?
Here’s what I netted for my efforts:
In the gym I got a new personal record for the 10 minute all out air dyne ride.
Outside the gym I put on my fastest time running 4.4 miles.
At work I published 4 soundtracks that will provide huge value to a business and ethics class I teach this fall. I put these tracks together after I was spent for the day and well after I wanted to quit. This week I’m way ahead of the game because of this extra effort.
And finally, my stinky, flooded basement is cleared out and reorganized. On a weekend when I wanted to watch a movie and take a nap I dug in and dug deep.
Here it is a new week and I’m glad I moved so many things further down the track. It is gratifying and I have more momentum than last week did. I have more confidence and contentment as well.
Thanks Rob for supporting me by pushing me.
If you missed the challenge last week, take it now.
I want to hear about it.
Here you see Rob working out with us last Wednesday, one reason I respect him is that he doesn’t send out idle instructions. He has done everything he asks me to do…and usually he does it longer and harder.
If you missed our webinar on social-media, on-line strategy and the related trends of 2012, you don’t have to miss the information. Please feel free to share this webinar and the associated PDF file.
To view the presentation click here!
Listen to the corresponding webinar!
If you have a facebook page, if you have a blog, if you need to market yourself at all, this is the best webinar to attend for 2012!
Those who know the rules and often help make them are presenting how to use today’s technology to your advantage.
Branding defines your company. Social Strategies spread your definition.
Producing content helps you sell and market your offerings.
Attracting true brand evangelists boosts your net worth.
Knowing the current trends in social media is an imperative.
Having a Social Strategy is a smart and powerful business practice.
Join Kyle Snarr and Justin Meredith in the free webinar on Social Media, Your Brand and the Trends of 2012.
Kyle Snarr is currently the Director of New Business at Struck. He began his career as a film student at BYU where he created several award-winning student films. Collaborations with fellow students in the graphic design department helped lead to the creation of Struck, a digital-forward creative agency noted for its groundbreaking interactive design and development. During his time at Struck he has produced work that has won a Clio, the Cannes Gold Lion and the London International Award of Excellence. Kyle also blogs about design, music, movies and cars under the pseudonym Kyality
Justin Meredith created Canister, a small studio outside Atlanta that focuses on niche and micro projects, in 1997. He has spent the duration working on projects that range from printed books in a couple dozen languages to iPhone apps with one thing in common: distinct audiences that have behaviors unique to their group. With a background in rhetoric, Justin studies and predicts how audiences react to interior motivations and exterior design. These days the studio spends a little more than half its time on philanthropic projects.”
Like us on Facebook at SoulSalt Inc and LynChristian so you can continue to learn about these sorts of free events.
I recently sat at coffee with a sharp young man named Nico Pesci. I find him driven and bright. And what he shared with me that morning was a new twist on how he set his New Years goals. I found his experience worth sharing and I have permission to let you in on our nine-minute conversation.
Have a listen, and let me know what you think about Nico’s new method for goal setting. Maybe you have one you’d like to share. Let me know.
A Twist On Goal Setting by soulsaltinc
Check out the book Flow By Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Sometimes the things we learn come from people both younger and smarter than ourselves.
Enter Katy Bowman. Katy is an up-and-coming bio-mechanically oriented genius (for more information also see “author’s note”). Even at birth it seems she had mensa written all over her. While most of her followers are raving fans of Katy’s wellness and alignment information (which I admit to enjoying as well) what really fascinates me is her scientific/engineering/practical approach to elements of human performance.
I’m kind of a geek when it comes to learning what maximizes an individual’s capacity. So when Katy starts talking about topics like how to set better goals I take note.
What Katie says about Goal Setting by soulsaltinc
Here are three strong pieces of Katy’s advice in terms of the first step in reaching a goal – the goal setting process:
Oh there is much more that Katy says about how to write and reach your goals. And I will certainly share these later. In the meantime, sit down and try your hand at setting an incredibly strong goal for yourself. If you want feedback, send it our way and Katy or I will let you know how solid we think it is.
Author’s Note
Katy Bowman, M.S., is an expert in analyzing human movement. She applies the engineering principles of biomechanics to quantify and analyze the every-day use of the HUMAN MACHINE, and in so doing fulfills at least three critical purposes.
First, she assists us in learning how to reduce common diseases and other ailments. Secondly, she makes all this scientific, mathematical, physics-oriented information actually easy for the us common folk to understand. Finally, she’s damn funny. No really, she’s hilarious. To learn more about Katy’s background and innate love for anatomy/physiology visit: www.katysays.com and www.alignedandwell.com.
Somewhere behind a mid-week depression and into a soft-centered urge to cry, I doggie paddled out to Saturday’s starting line.
Forget about wetting myself. I did that on the shoreline.
The adrenaline buzzing through my veins was unappreciated. A caffeine-like quick start burns out fast. I needed some sort of high-octane, sustaining fuel.
Last week (as you may have read in the August 19th posting) I let go of a hundred pounds of expectation, and replaced that weight with an intention to fall into flow and see what would happen. Seconds before the race I needed to plug into that wisdom so I accessed council given to me from three sources:
These words were the fingers that turned off the noxious switches trying to fire in my brain. These were my anchors rooting me back into my hard-trained endurance. These were faith lines plugging into the power that leads my soul. So out in the water, treading away, I blended them into a freshly made mantra:
“Today I trust in flow. I simply desire to finish with a sense that I have done my best.”
Then the fog horn blew and the race began. Within the first 25 yards it took full throttle awareness to get both mind and body to shift together intoa sustainable pace which in my case is comparatively slower than most of the competition. I wasn’t afraid of drowning. I was concerned about an over abundance of adrenalin. Intent on finding a sense of stability I slowed into flow before the first marker. And then it slipped out. I found it again. I worked on my sightings, checked in on flow again and made sure I could feel it from head to toe. I kept an eye on other athletes flailing or straying along my side. It took persistence to focus on breathing and to trust my goal – simply finish centered and grounded in a good effort. And I persisted around the course and up out of the water. For me, coming out of the swim healthy and whole is enough of a win for any tri event.
Once on the bike my heart stoked confidence as my partner called out the swim time – the best I’ve ever had. In that exact moment my legs pushed into place clicking with a sure sense of the power invested there. Within 15 seconds I had passed the first racer ahead in my age division. From there on I stayed in the groove – streaming cooperative levels of air to lungs, strength to legs, and remained unattached to outcomes.
I passed several people; a 44 year-old men, a 28 year-old women, and a couple of teenagers (racer’s ages are painted on the back of the left calve). I maintained the steady, strong flowing pace right back to the 5k transition.
And then I started to run. Each extremity below my waist seemed like cement. What had pushed hard on the bike was joining gravity and pushing back on my core. I pulled a half-chewed shot block from my mouth and threw it in the reservoir. I yanked my hat down low, concentrated on finding a way to get the lines of communication moving down my leg hoping to find a strand of lucid energy. Again the hours of training came into play. They helped me trust that I’d get a healthy stride, just like I usually do after the first mile marker. The heat turned up a notch and tried to convince me otherwise.
“Keep moving, just sustain,” my heart whispered. “You’re going for a finish. You only need to find your stride and ride this out.” I calmed myself into this thought as a pesky little voice rushed up intent on pushing my buttons, “Hope for at least placing fifth.” I instantly swiped the thought from my mind.
I talked back, “I don’t need to place. I came here to experiment with finding flow and staying with it.” I kept a tight grip on that thought and passed the second mile marker. This is where I found myself measuring the distance between my energy and the finish line. I wanted to keep up the pace and be able to kick in at 100 yards out. That marker came and went. I decided I needed to stay in the flow I had going. I sensed I had enough kick for the last 50 yards. And when that mark came I shifted. The fuel was there, the flow was too. I moved across the finish line with a strong final surge.
Authors Note
What we do matters so much less than who we become from the doing. As I write this entry tears tangle in a knot at mid throat. For having put myself out there to sustain flow no matter what, I am forever changed. There are new and more sustainable patterns emblazoned in my being. I have a fresh map for success. The energy in my life and work increased in voltage. I now know how to meld with a divine spark.
The experience has been golden and I stand humbly in disbelief with a medal to remind me of such.
Honestly, I’m depressed. The feeling started coming on strong last night and seems to be sustaining itself through today. On any other given week my strategy would be to stay strong and move through it. I’d consider the situation a temporary FUNK – something we all honestly experience from time-to-time.
This is not a normal week.
On Saturday I have a race – my third triathlon. I feel weak, on the verge of breaking down both emotionally and mentally. That potential break down is spawning fear. This fear is taunting me trying to suggest that I’m breaking down physically as well. My right knee and calve want to believe the fear. They are flirting with being on the verge of being strained.
I’m not happy with what’s happening.
Yet, it is happening.
The entire situation has left me to ponder and within that practice this is what has come:
Find harmony through conflict. Allow conflict to lead to harmony.
This message is producing a resolve. It is inspiring me to completely let go of any expectation or outcome for the race. It has given birth to an intention to:
Fall back into the current of flow and see where it takes me.
I’ve trained hard and diligently. In my soul I know my body is ready. My mental and emotional bodies are not. In order to engage “flow” I’m letting go. I plan to keep my eyes and ears open during the race, to be in observation mode and nothing else.
When I get back to blogging next week, I’ll let you know how that went.
Author’s Note
It is not uncommon for fighters and other athletes to find their bodies shutting down in a self-preserving effort to build a reserve just before competition. Knowing this makes it easier to normalize what is happening. It assists in quieting the hungry hounds of fear barking at the door of my sanity. It does not diminish the belief I have that a larger lesson of letting go is being presented. I trust. I trust myself to know that fear is asking me to build an arsenal, to summon up drive and resolve, yet for now, it is time to rest and see what is to come.
If you’ve set a goal and started making progress on that goal, you may be hitting a glitch or two. If so, good for you!
Seriously.
Consider a game of dodge ball. When fast paced objects are flying at you, when people are shuffling around you, you’re probably not sitting it out on the sideline. You are in the game.
So it is with goal getting. Barriers and obstacles are going to arise. Homeostasis will push back whenever we start pushing toward change. Be careful not to misinterpret obstacles and small glitches as proof that your quest is defective or doomed. It is far more likely that game is on and you are making progress. So keep going.
For more on this topic view this:
Sometimes when we are asked to set a goal, our minds go blank. Depending on where you are mentally, it might be difficult to quickly spit out a goal that both serves you and excites you. If this sounds familiar there are many small things you can do to immediately help yourself begin to clarify a goal worthy of your time and attention. Here are just a few of them:
Browse through magazines that you typically don’t subscribe to. Look through the pictures. Skim a few of the articles. Notice if something catches your fancy. Notice if something begins to churn in your head or heart that says, “Now that sounds like something I would like to try.” This could be the beginning of a goal.
Revisit the dreams you have on your “I want to do that someday” list. Which ones both excite you and scare you a bit? Write those two or three ideas down. You now have a short list to start working with. Determine the order in which you’d like to complete these ideas. Which would be first, then second, then third? How about getting started on the first one? Formally give it a name and promote it to being a full-fledged goal. Call or e-mail me if you feel like you need a kick-start to get going on this venture.
Ask yourself this question: “If time and funding were not limitations, what would I do?” Start making your list. When you sense that you have a healthy amount of ideas, share your list with a trusted other. Ask them to assist you in challenging yourself to make one of the ideas a goal that you will start within the next thirty days. It might take longer to complete your goal, however NOW is a great time to get going on it.
For more ideas on how to begin to clarify a goal, listen to this quick pod-cast.
Probability of Completing a Goal by soulsaltinc