See The Thing About Goals Is…

I’ve been thinking a lot about goals this week.  With Ironman 70.3 a good 10 days behind me, I’m still trying to figure out why this goal was so much different than other goals.  Why did I work so much harder on this one than, let’s say that sub 2:00 half marathon PR that I almost got but never accomplished?

The first difference is obvious, I didn’t put any time constraints on the 70.3, simply finishing was goal enough for me but beyond that…

This goal has been rattling around for YEARS.  Before the kids were born, I was deep into triathlon and that’s really when I started thinking seriously about tackling the distance.

But it’s taken me years to successfully train for it and achieve it.  Now you could say, raising kids for 6 and half years puts a damper on your own interests and that’s true to an extent.

I’ve tried to set this goal in the past and knew pretty quickly after doing it, that the timing wasn’t right.  That my heart wasn’t in it.  I even worried after those failed attempts that maybe this wasn’t really a goal I was committed to ever accomplishing.

Why is timing the determining factor?  If you want something bad enough, the timing should work itself out? Right?

To this day, I’m not sure why it stuck this time but I knew from the time I registered back in October that I was committed…not necessarily confident that I would be successful but that I was committed to trying.

I also realized that just being committed to the training wasn’t enough.  There was a fire for this goal that I couldn’t explain.  It pushed me through tough workouts.  It pushed me through 56 miles of what felt like an out of body experience, and drug me all the way across the finishline when physically I didn’t have it.

See that’s the amazing thing about goals and not your everyday goals but the goals you’re burning to achieve.  You know the difference…just think about it.  We all set “goals” but are they really goals?  Or are they just easy to achieve milestones that make us feel good?

I’m talking about the ones that when you reach, make you ugly cry like you never imagined.  The ones that make you buy the race photos just so you can remember that feeling.  Those…

They remind you that you’re so much more than you think.  You’re deeper and more powerful…and sometimes you learn more about who you are when you fail.

Those goals

I was more than willing to accept failure in Chattanooga (maybe a little too willing) because I didn’t know if I could.  I had no past experience to fall back on.  That’s a scary cliff to jump from…the one where you don’t know what’s at the bottom

BUT

I’m here to tell you to not be afraid.

Approach that cliff…

Take a huge running leap and JUMP…

Fall hard…

Enjoy the ride…

and when you get to the bottom…

Don’t be afraid to look up and remember how far you’ve gone!

It may not be pretty but you’ve earned it!

What goal are you burning to achieve?