You can not have a goal without a dream.
You can not reach a goal without passion.
They told me to set a goal but I didn't get instructions
I am an electrical fitter. I can fix electrical faults on electrical locomotives and I can fix electrical faults in houses. That’s what I am trained to do. And I like it. But I don’t like it enough to make a living with it, and certainly not enough to sacrifice anything for it.
And that’s why I’ve failed to build it into a sustainable business when I had the chance to do so. I had no goals, except making money from what I know. And that wasn’t enough. I made the mistake of thinking that doing what I know would get me to where I wanted to be. That was my first failure in trying to achieve a useless goal that had nothing to do with what I really wanted.
And that is one of the most valuable lessons I've had to learn. You can not achieve anything meaningful if you are not absolutely clear on what you want. It's not about what you think you want, or you’ve been told you want, but all about what you really want with all your heart.
Your goals and your dreams should be so intertwined that you don’t know the difference between the two, because your dream is your goal and your goal is your dream.
I discovered what goals were when I started running. Before I started running I've been a member of really great gyms with great support but I never really achieved the results I wanted. What I do remember was the feeling of crushing disappointment when after two weeks of working out and going to the gym six days a week, and following a healthy diet, the numbers on the scale still didn’t tell me the story I wanted to see. And it happened week after week.
The disappointment of not reaching my goal weight robbed me entirely of the purpose and pleasure of going to the gym. And eventually I quit.
Three years later I took up running. And something just clicked.
And I learned some very valuable lessons about goals that changed everything I thought I knew about setting goals, and it changed my life:
Focus on one a specific single end goal: When I started running my goal wasn’t to lose weight or centimeters, I wanted to run 10 kilometers without stopping or thinking that I was going to die from exhaustion along the way. I didn’t think about anything else, except that one goal. See yourself reaching your goal and forget about everything in between.
Remove everything that would distract from your goal - I didn’t use a measuring band and I never weighed myself during those months of running towards my goal. I'd say, throw away the measuring band and ignore the scale. My goal wasn’t the centimeters or the weight, I just didn’t want to feel like my heart was about to explode after a few kilometers of running, and I wanted to run without stopping after the first two kilometers.
Set small goals along the way that are in line with your ultimate goal - I knew that it would take awhile to run non-stop without feeling as if my lungs would collapse. Part of our route was running up a very steep incline that rewards you with the most beautiful view of our city. It is a short but grueling exercise. My smaller goal was to master that incline, and to stop swearing at the destination that refused to come closer when I was too tired to run farther.
Celebrate the small victories - Every time I reached the top of that incline I would celebrate for not giving up. And it served as my inspiration and motivation to keep on going
It wasn’t all about winning, it was more about the journey - Enjoy the journey, and don’t stress about how you’re going to reach your goal. Just keep on doing what you’re doing and you will reach your goal.
Every little bit helps - In the beginning it, the running felt completely useless, because there was no noticeable difference at all. But over time every kilometer I’ve run added up to something.
When your desire and your goal are in line with each other, you do what needs to be done every time - To fit running into my day I had to wake up before 5am in the middle of winter, when everyone else was still sleeping. It needed to be done and after a while it felt natural to wake up that time of the morning because I understood why I was doing it.
Achieving what seemed impossible at first made me realise afterwards that anything is possible - Achieving a difficult goal in one area of my life affected other areas in a positive way. I wanted to do better and be more in other areas of my life as well. Things that seemed impossible before suddenly seemed possible and do-able.
There is no goal without passion - If you don’t get excited about your goal and if you’re not passionate about it, don’t waste your time pursuing it. It’s not your heart talking and you’re doing it for the wrong reasons. It’s not worth it to waste your time on something that doesn’t want you to jump out of bed in the mornings. Find something else.
I did reach my goal of being able to run ten kilometers non-stop. And it felt incredible.
I've set other goals after that. By figuring it how to reach one goal, I could achieve others after that. That was only the beginning.
All you need is one goal that burns in your heart and go after it. You will find that many other things will fall into place in the most unexpected and surprising ways.
Now that we are in lockdown, it might be an opportunity to look at your goals, and assess and to find what is it that would make life meaningful for you. It's not easy when you feel overwhelmed and tired but it might change your perspective.
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