I had an email conversation the other day with a very good friend of mine. He owns his own business, which is struggling right now, but he’s getting it back off the ground. He’s found a little traction, so, in a moment of optimistic reality checking, he decided to make a list of business goals. He put some very specific things in his goal sheet, including numbers for where he should be tomorrow, in 6 months, in a year, in 2 years, in 5 years, and in 10 years.
All in all, I thought my friend’s goals for his business were realistic and attainable. They were well-thought out, and I really enjoyed seeing that he is putting some time into figuring out where his business should go.
When I was done reading through the goals, though, I emailed him back.
It’s great to have goals. Now you need to make plans to accomplish them. For example, if your goal is a new customer tomorrow, what exactly will you do to try to make that happen?
I didn’t hear from him after that…. Perhaps he’s just busy making those plans.
Even though I’ve written in the past that goals may be a problem for some people, I really do believe that it’s important to have them. But you know what is even more important? Taking action to reach those goals.
Let’s use an example goal of “Lose 10 pounds by June 30th”.
How can you reach that goal? If you are a fast-food junkie, maybe you could plan only to eat fast food on Wednesdays.
That might work!
Now, then, unless you execute the plan, the goal is about worthless.
Let’s look at that seemingly simple plan: Cutting back to eating fast food only on Wednesdays.
You may look at that and think, “I can do that. I only eat fast food 4 days a week now. Cutting back to 1 day would be easy.” Will it? Seems like it should be, especially since you’ve already decided it’s a good idea.
The first week goes great! Your resolve is strong and you have a pretty good plan.
Over the weekend, you pick up some healthy foods at the grocery store. You get up early enough every day to make yourself a real breakfast and prepare a lunch to take to work. After work, you enjoy making dinner, trying new foods. You don’t miss your McMuffins, Whataburgers with cheese, and finger-lickin’ good chicken. Hell, you even skip fast food on Wednesday, because you feel so good about how you are eating!
Then comes the busy weekend. You go to a movie with your family. Everyone wants to go to go to Sonic, and you reason, “Well, I skipped my Wednesday fast food day, I’ll just have it today.” That’s cool.
Monday morning rolls around again, and you realize you are out of breakfast foods, because you didn’t get to the store over the weekend. You make your box lunch with the last of your lunch fixin’s, but you are starving, so you say to yourself, “I’ll just have my fast-food day today instead of Wednesday,” and you grab some breakfast tacos on the way in to work.
You end up working late and can’t get home for dinner — good thing this is your fast food day, you think, as you snarf that Big Mac and fries. You’re so beat as you head home that you don’t stop at the grocery store to pick up some healthy breakfast and lunch foods.
The next day, you hit a drive-thru for breakfast again, and you say to yourself, “Well, this week is a bust. I’ll get back on it next week.”
But you never do.
I cannot tell you how many times that scenario played out in my life. Maybe not exactly that way, but pretty close.
So … what happened?
The goal was there. The plan was there. This thing failed, however, in the execution of the plan.
If you have a fitness goal, that’s great, but that only puts you part of the way there. Creating a plan is important, too, but, of course, the execution of that plan is the most important piece of the puzzle.
How can you be more successful?
Prioritize your fitness. I wrote a post about that before, but let’s look at the concept here, in terms of the practical example above.
The priorities were in place the first week. You hit the store for food. You made sure you had enough time to make yourself breakfast and lunch. You were cooking great dinners.
The plan started to go awry, however, with the fast food on Saturday. Wednesday was supposed to be “Fast Food” day. Saturday is not Wednesday. However, your family’s desires took the priority away from your fitness goal.
The weekend slipped away without your going to the store to pick up more healthy food options for your breakfasts and lunches. That was your restful Sunday taking the priority away from your fitness goal.
Monday morning fast food? Well, you knew that was wrong, but when that laps spilled over into Tuesday, well, that was your fitness goal being out-prioritized by everything else in your life.
And that is how we fail. We fail to put fitness at the top of the priority list.
You may say, “But, Steve, dining with my family is more important to me than quitting fast food.” Okay, fine, that’s valid. I guess. Right? That’s a decision for you to make.
I can tell you from my own experience that family desires, job requirements, relaxation needs — those are all things that are high on my priority list. But when I finally decided to get fit, I had to move fitness to the top of the list.
“Thanks for making that birthday cake for me, mom, but I’m not going to have any.” Do you think that was an easy conversation? No. But this is my fitness — and my health — we are talking about, so it’s my responsibility. If that means I won’t be eating cake, pizza, and hot wings with the family, so be it.
You may be able to be less strict. You may be able to at least have a bite of the cake, a half-slice of the pizza, just one of the wings. If you can do that, more power to you.
But if you are able to do that, that’s great, and it shows that you have prioritized fitness. When you prioritize fitness, you’ll be well on your way to executing your fitness plan, and, therefore, achieving your fitness goals!
