Today’s blog post comes from a wonderful human being—BSP NOVA member, Supriya Baily. Supriya has been training with us since April of 2015, and she continually attains things that SHE never thought possible (like a 255# barbell deadlift, which might actually be up to 265# now), and continues to set aspirational goals (she’ll get into what that’s all about below), toeing the line of imagination and reality.
When she emailed this insightful, entertaining, and all around awesome blog to us a number of weeks ago, I don’t think she imagined we’d actually post it. But I am so happy that she took the time to do this, and I am excited to share it with you today… – Chris
The most amazing group of coaches I know, have been pushing me for about one year (strangely enough, just about the same time they moved into a fancy new location), to know and verbalize my goals. That this exercise has been worse than a root canal is an understatement. I will avoid, ignore, pout and whine – All qualities I do NOT see myself exhibit at any other time, except when it comes to this exercise.
While goals are hard to articulate, I know I have aspirations. When we were in the old location, and I was newer and greener, I remember watching a few people flip this gigantic tire and nothing looked as empowering, as fulfilling or as much fun as that. But for a number of reasons about how I look at myself – I could never see myself being able to do anything with that tire.
So in the new facility, this January, the day after my birthday, in my new program, Geoff rolled out the tire and my heart did a happy flip! I was overwhelmed and excited! I watched him show me what I needed to do, I listened as carefully as I could, and then I tried to flip that tire. I pushed with my arms, but I didn’t drive my body, and that tire, that thing I had been waiting to push over, pushed me instead, and two seconds later, I was on the ground with a 250lb tire on my body. But instead of feeling stupid, I got back up, pushed the damn thing and it went over.
OK – So it was a do-able, reachable aspiration and when it happened – no bruise on my ankle could take away the sense of accomplishment that came with it! Ever since then, any program that has my tire in it (and yes, it is my tire, even though I know other people use it) brings a smile to my face. BUT now, it is the bigger tire that I am aspiring to flip – despite the probably irrefutable fact that I physically just might not be able to do that.
But dammit, I want to flip that tire.
I love my coaches, and I love my gym – but I like things to stay the way they are. This new gym is beautiful. Pristine, bright and happy…(a little corporate) [<– this is Supriya trying to get under my skin, and I refuse to take it out of the blog!], but the smiles, conversations and workouts are just as amazing, so I have learned to live with the posters, and the new dumbbells, and the need to “set goals”. In this lovely large space, I have discovered my aspirational tire, might be sent out to pasture.
So – I am single-handedly advocating for the tire to stay – because as I argued today, it is part of my dream. My coaches might believe that “Starting small and helping someone to only concern his or her self with what the next hour will look decreases goal setting’s sometimes daunting affect” [1] But as I drove home from a kick-ass[2] workout today, I realized that my aspirations have often been unreachable and I am OK with that. From the time I was 12, my dream is to be the Secretary-General of the United Nations. This has been a constant, exceedingly ambitious ‘goal’, and while it is unlikely I will ever get there, it remains something that I can’t ever say won’t happen – every month, every year, I do things that I would not have dreamed of the year before, so who’s to say the dream is totally out of reach?
So I did some research when I got home. I found a blog by Alex Moffit[3], who talks about aspirational goals (and good grief, the number of websites about goal setting is astronomical – who are these people??). Anyway, Moffit quotes Larry Page of Google who said “Over time I’ve learned surprisingly, that it’s tremendously hard to get teams to be super ambitious. It turns out most people haven’t been educated in this kind of moonshot thinking” Moffit says “Google has it figured out. The best way to accomplish aspirational goals is to set them.”
He does say some things about real world physics and setting key milestones (and other blah, blah, blah practical things), but the idea here really is about aspiring to something bigger than ourselves. If we only aspired to what we can visualize ourselves doing, then we can only ever stay within the confines of our imagination. If we only set goals that take us from month to month, do we fight battles but forget to win the war? If we are staying with tired literacy clichés – do we grow a plant, instead of envisioning a forest?
I think we all need to read this again: “If we only aspired to what we can visualize ourselves doing, then we can only ever stay within the confines of our imagination.”
Aspirational goals are goals that make your heart pound a little faster. Aspirational goals are the ones that when they are shared out loud, make you feel a little silly, but they bring a smile to your face. Aspirational goals help you see the possibility of who you could be. A different kind of gym makes room for the goals that we can track, but it also let’s us keep a few dreams private so that when someone rolls out the tire, and you never thought you could do it – a dream just became a reality.
So – please consider this when you decide to give away the tire!
PS – I know that you have to do what’s right for BSP and the rest of your dream for the space – but this was supposed to make you all laugh a little – and if you do give it away – I promise that I will be OK with it! I just thought that a blog-type response to all the goal-setting I have had to do this week, and reading about goals, would be fun!
S
[1] http://www.strengthfaction.com/4-ways-to-help-your-clients-set-goals/
[2] Yes – I wrote that – Look what else I am getting better at!
- We’ve been trying to get Supriya comfortable being not-quite-so-goody-two-shoes all the time!
[3] https://blog.betterworks.com/aspirational-goal-setting-at-work/
