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ACHIEVING GOALS ARE PROCESSES

Goal setting is a powerful tool. It provides focus and highlights the actions you need to be successful. Goals keep you on track, even when it feels like you aren’t making any progress. When you hit obstacles, focusing on your goals keeps you moving forward. And constantly moving forward, even if only by little bits at a time, is the aim of the game.

Setting and achieving goals, however, is a process that is used to keep you moving forward. Goals are not destinations.

Consider a university course: The goal is to earn a qualification, but the qualification is not the end of the line. You might further your education, or the qualification may be what you need to enter the workplace. You certainly don’t stop learning when you begin working either. The goal–the qualification–got you to a stage in the journey.

A pay incentive at work is a goal. You need to meet X objectives in order to earn a bonus. You meet the objectives and earn the bonus, but you don’t stop working. Unless of course the bonus was fat enough to retire on! The goal–the bonus–was used to keep you motivated and focused.

It’s the same with fitness. Goals are used to keep you on track, to keep you moving towards increased work capacity across broad time and modal domains throughout life. The goals aren’t the destination. So you’ve lost all the body fat you wanted to, how much more can you improve your health markers by now? You got your first pull-up, how many can you do without resting now? You’re able to walk on your hands, how quickly can you cover 60m on your hands?

Goals are tools to keep you moving forward. To be just 1% better than yesterday, you need goals. But there is no destination, you’ll never get “there.” So set smart goals, accomplish them and set new ones, but don’t get caught up in the goals or in whatever you think the endline for fitness is. Fitness is a journey that takes a lifetime to travel. Enjoy the journey, it’s what matters most!

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