2012: Consistency & Flexibility

“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.” -Henry Ford

Tis the season to establish some SMART goals. SMART, as you may well know, is an acronym for goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound. As I’m doing for myself, I’m asking all of my athletes to create not only smart goals, but smart targets. I believe that it’s important to distinguish between goals and targets. Goals should be process based; the journey. Example: I will work to be as consistent with my workout sessions in 2012 as possible while being flexible. Targets are the desired outcomes. Example. I will break five hours in a 70.3 triathlon. As you’ve heard me say in the past, we tie our perceived success to our goals, those things over which we have control. I firmly believe that a laser-like focus on our process-based goals will most likely result in our hitting the targets at which our season is aimed. Above all, 2012 is about two things:

CONSISTENCY & FLEXIBILITY

As an athlete and a coach, I want to ensure that we’re getting out of endurance sports what is most important, namely, happiness. Happiness, in my book, comes from living at the top of our powers in every day living while attaining the skills to meet new challenges. This has also been referred to as the flow state.

So, let’s begin 2012, with the end in mind. Let’s take the remainder of this year and craft some smart goals and targets, keeping them simple and specific, and post them in conspicuous places so that we can be reminded of why it is we choose to put ourselves through all this bull___. 😀

Here’s some good slides from webinars I’ve recently conducted on my journey to re-certifying as a USA Triathlon coach. Use them to help stir your creative juices. I will be following up with you in December on your goals and targets. We’ll put place them on your 2012 Google Doc and refer to them regularly. Please let me know if you have any questions.