Keep Your Goals Very Small

Start Small and Never Stop
Start Small and Never Stop

What the?  Keep my goals very small?  Didn’t you say to dream big?

Didn’t you say, “If your goal isn’t impossible, you’re not reaching high enough.”

Exactly.

And maybe the challenge for many people, including you, is that your definition of impossible is inaccurate.

When I started running 11 years ago, my impossible goal wasn’t to run in the Master’s Track & Field World Championships.

It also wasn’t to run one mailbox a day for a week, and then two mailboxes a day the second week and so on.

It was to get started and never stop.

One day at a time.  Get started and never quit.  Never quit, one day at a time – this is what I mean by very small goals.

Do you see the difference?

Christmas Eve Lane 8

This Is Your Year
This Is Your Year

A Lane 8 Christmas wish to all of you.

May Santa bring you one or all of the following:

  • Lower Cholesterol
  • Lower Blood Pressure
  • Higher HDL
  • Great Triglyceride Levels
  • Lower Resting Heart Rate
  • Lower BMI
  • Appropriate Weight Gain or Loss
  • Better Eating Habits
  • Proper Equipment for Your Activity
  • Motivation
  • Inspiration
  • Focus
  • Discipline
  • Impossible Goals
  • Fun, Friendship, Fellowship
  • Another Day to Smile

Long lists are good sometimes.  Hoping you get it all this year.  You deserve it.

And, oh yeah, one more thing from Santa, hope he brings you an indomitable will.

Pain In The

World Championships Gold Medal
World Championships Gold Medal

Have you ever had something really important or “big” in your life, a long-time dream perhaps, where you where getting close to the end of your journey?

And you were so close you could see the glorious end in sight, but then the unthinkable happened.

How did you deal with it?  Did it work out for you?

Where you forced to compromise? Or maybe (gasp), quit?

Pain in the as foot.

Pain in my left foot. Still.

It plagued me during the August Master’s Track & Field World Championships. In fact, it has bothered me all year.

In the Spring, it seemed to be a dominant topic at Lane 8.

By June however, I pretty much had stopped writing about the pain, but not because it went away.

Eventually, I had to suck it up and do what needed to be done to make it happen.

In Finland, it didn’t turn out the way I had dreamed, but that’s the beautiful lesson – nothing turns out the way we dream.

It’s either better or worse, but never the same.

Lane 8 Hypocrite

Lane 8 Hypocrite?
Lane 8 Hypocrite?

Maybe. Maybe not.

On January 5, 2009 my Family Physician wrote a script for a routine colonoscopy, since this is the year I turned 50.

Well, here we are, almost January, 2010 – a year later.  No colonoscopy.  Not even scheduled yet.

How in the hell can that happen?

Simple.  You already know, don’t you?  We get busy.  Distracted. Paralyzed – with the fear of making a commitment.

So, please know I ain’t perfect.  Big dreamer?  Absolutely.  Perfect?  No way.

But if you look at the batting average, it represents a decent overall “practice what you preach” reality.

How’s your batting average?

Masters Track?

Masters Track
Masters Track

Yes, Masters Track.

What do you do to stay motivated to reach and maintain your health goals?

Master’s athletes are defined as people over 30 years old.

There are other sports that have Masters competitions too.  The thought of trying something completely out of my comfort zone actually seems possible – at a future time, of course.

Why?

Because the whole point of the competition, to me, is simply to find ways to stay motivated.  When things get boring, I get less motivated.

This is a deadly place to be, literally.

Someday. maybe swimming.  Or perhaps I’ll try Filed events, like the Discus, Shot Put, or, heaven forbid, the Pole Vault.

Whatever it takes.  That’s one of the secrets to staying healthier.  I figure everybody knows this, but it never hurts to say important things over and over.

Does it?