Goal Setting And Mindset

I have been looking forward to this upcoming weekend for months.  It is the 15th running of the Pike’s Peek 10k.  It’s a race I’ve been training to participate in for months.  I will be going for my 10k personal record and plan to leave nothing out on the course.

The reason I’m telling you this is because I want to share with you some of the strategies that I’ve used to stay focused and persevere through injury and illness during my training program.

I’ve often discussed in the past the importance of 3 key factors in achieving your fitness goals.  Nutrition, exercise and mindset are certainly vital elements to success in any fitness or weight loss program.  But today, I’d like to talk about the importance of the intangible elements that are critical to succeeding in ANY of life’s endeavors, but specifically to achieving your personal fitness, weight and athletic goals.

These factors include goal setting, vision, determination, perseverance and discipline. Though these are only words, living by them is what will ultimately determine whether you live your dream and accomplish your goals or stand on the sideline wondering – “What if?”

I’d like to share with you some insight from one of our trainers, Chad Ciri, who recently competed in the Crossfit sectional competition in Northern Virginia, the first step in his journey to qualify for the Crossfit games in California.

“It has been my goal to qualify for the 2011 Crossfit games for the last 2 years, which is one of the most highly regarded strength and conditioning competitions for some of the best athletes in the world!”

“As I entered the competition this year, I wasn’t really expecting to qualify for the next step toward the games for 2010, rather, I was there to discover how much more work I needed to accomplish my goal of reaching the 2011 competition.  It was a stepping stone towards my ultimate goal.”

“To make a long story short, I finished somewhere in the middle of the pack. I originally felt frustrated by this and my journey to even qualify for the 2011 games seemed that much more daunting. For days, I thought about abandoning my goal of continuing to train for 2011. Then I realized, I had absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. I was out there giving it everything I had, and at the end of the day, I hung in there with some of the best athletes on the east coast. ”

“Though I may not be proud to share the outcome of this competition with my clients or to a huge list of strangers for that matter, I am proud to say that I left it all out on the table. I have to remind myself of why I signed on the dotted line in the first place to enter the competition. And mainly, for me, it was so I didn’t have to sit on the sidelines and wonder “What If”. I learned more about where I stood in comparison to the competition, and now I can formulate a better action plan of how to qualify next year.This must be my mindset if I’m going to ever achieve greatness.”
- Chad Ciri

This is something that I think everyone needs to keep in mind as they pursue their own personal fitness goals. Sure, not everyone is pursuing exercise competitively, but everyone is chasing a dream of their own.  Their best possible body, a goal weight, a certain fitness feat.  At the end of the day, if you can look at yourself in the mirror and honestly say that you’ve given it everything you have, you WILL get to your goal in time.

What we may perceive as failure is seldom accurate.  Instead, each time we miss a goal, we discover one more opportunity to improve and reformulate our path to success.

I was discussing goals and success with my good friend Steve Hefferon and he said something that really stuck with me.  He said… “In any room full of people, the most successful person is also the person who has had the most failures”.  This couldn’t be truer.  Only through failing do you learn and realize what you have to do to get it right next time.  This is perseverance.

One of my new favorite authors, Steve Chandler who runs www.clubfearless.net shared a very good Michael Jordan quote on this aspect the other day…

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career.
I’ve lost more than 300 games.  Twenty-six times I’ve
been trusted to take the game-winning shot, and missed.
I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. . . and
that’s why I succeed.”

- Michael Jordan

The last few months of my training for this race have not been without bumps in the road that I could’ve easily let stop the momentum I was building in my training.  I had to sit on the sidelines for 4 out of the 12 weeks at different times with a bulged disc in my back, a nasty sore throat, and then a cold.  I also twisted my knee in a near mountain biking crash just last week.  Most would take just one of those as excuse enough to stop their momentum.  I won’t.  My goal is clear.  I will be out there giving it my all.

Will you take on that same attitude for your goals? I sure hope so.

Never give up.  No matter what seems to be impeding your success.  Analyze where you went wrong in your previous approach, make corrections, and there’s nothing that can stop you.

Be Fearless,

Dennys Passeto

PS: If you want to participate in the 10k this Sunday, you can find out more about the race here http://pikespeek10k.com.  I’ll be the guy running with the Achieve Fitness shirt hoping to finish in under 46 minutes.