What are your goals?
Most of us have been asked that question before—maybe by friends, employers, a personal trainer. It’s a decent question.
It shouldn’t be the last question that gets asked with regard to your goals though. Beyond just declaring what your goal is, there’s another question you should consider: why is achieving this goal important to me? In other words, what’s the underlying motivation behind it?
Achieving goals, especially if they’re risky or hard to reach ones, can be tough. Working towards a goal for weeks, months, or years even, without understanding the purpose behind it, isn’t ideal. Because it’s hard to stay the course on something if we don’t know why we’re really pursuing it in the first place.
In a little bit, I’ll discuss an exercise for helping you examine the why behind your goals. First though, I want to share a story from a BSP client (who I’ll call Reilly), because it illustrates what this deeper why behind a goal could look like.
More Than A Push-Up
As I sat across the table from Reilly, in the BSP consultation office, she said something that I thought was interesting—and untrue.
Reilly told me that she didn’t like End Of Block meetings (meetings we have with our clients every time they finish a block, or four programs) because she wasn’t good at goal setting; that she didn’t know what to write down or if it was “right.”
She was wrong.
Reilly did a fantastic job of writing down her goals and, as important, jotting down why the goal mattered to her. She wasn’t bad at goal setting, she just thought she was.
Our form asks this question:
If we were meeting one year from today—and you were to look back over the last year to today—what has to have happened during that period for you to feel happy about your progress?
What did Reilly answer?
That she wanted to be able to do a push-up from the floor.
Pretty awesome, right?
While that goal is awesome, I also didn’t give her full answer, which goes on to say why she wants to do a push-up from the floor.
She continues by writing that she saw her parents struggle to get up off the floor as they got older, and that she doesn’t want to feel that way. For her, being able to do a push-up from the floor would give her the confidence and peace of mind that she could get up off the ground if needed; that if she ever fell, she could get up.
She knows her why.
If Reilly had stopped by saying, “be able to do a push-up from the floor,” it would have been awesome. But, by explaining why it mattered to her, it’s even awesome-er.
She can rely on her why. When bumps in the road appear, her why can keep her going. And if those bumps knock her down, then she has peace of mind that she can get back up.
Goals Should Reflect The Person We Want To Be, Our Values
Before I continue though, I want to mention another reason knowing our why is important: it helps ensure we pursue goals that matter to us in the first place.
There’s a problem we sometimes fall into with goal setting. We write down things we think we want, but not things we actually want.
We see super thin models on magazines and think we need to be that skinny—or that it would be nice to be that skinny; we see a supplement ad showing some jacked guy with a six pack, so we decide we want that.
Our culture constantly perpetuates standards for what beautiful is, for what attractive is. It tries to get us to want those things; the six pack abs; the toned stomach. There is nothing wrong with wanting those things…if you truly want them.
The problem comes up when—upon being asked what our goals our—we declare goals like wanting six pack abs when they, truthfully, don’t matter to us and our life.
So, when it comes to writing down your goals—and, writing them down does help, research has shown this—put down whatever you feel your true goals are; not goals given to you by the media, your friends, or even your family.
Maybe you do want to look like the models on the magazines and ads, but maybe you don’t. Whatever your goal is, it should be your own goal. What you want. What you desire.
The important thing is that our goals should reflect the person we want to be, our values—and impact our life in a positive way.
This is where understanding our why helps us again.
Think about it: why invest hour upon hour on something that won’t impact your life in a meaningful way?
So if a six pack is what you truly want, then great. If it’s not, then that’s great too.
To help better understand how your goals impact your life—meaning, whether they truly matter or not—I have a short exercise for you to think about.
How Will Your Life Be Different?
Imagine that you’ve achieved the goal you hoped to achieve, whatever it may be.
How is your life different after achieving that goal? What does that life look like?
Don’t rush to put an answer down. Really think about it. Picture it in your mind. What does that goal-achieved life look like?
The reason this exercise is helpful is it gets us to think about the impact a goal has on our life.
This may do one of two things:
- after reflecting on your goal, you realize it doesn’t matter to you;
- or, maybe it does matter and you really want to achieve that goal now—that’s great!
The important thing is taking a step back to think about your goals at a deeper level.
Goals: Our Why Keeps Us Going
Setting a goal can feel scary. When we do so, we’re declaring what we want, and there is a chance we may not achieve it. It’s frightening.
So it helps to be sure that it’s something you truly want. You do this by understanding your why.
Once you set a goal for yourself, ask the questions:
How will my life be different after achieving this goal? What will my life look like?
Think about the impact of that goal and decide if that’s truly what you want to pursue. Because, if it is, then you’ll have a renewed sense of motivation to get started; and, when bumps do inevitably appear on the road, you’ll know it’s worth traveling down the poorly paved road.
By the way, goal setting is a skill. It takes lots of reps and practice to get better at it. So, if you’d like help with your goal setting and getting started working towards your goals, then fill out the form below to claim your free week.