Goal Setting

“Wow, that’s going to be quite an undertaking don’t you think?” With the

comment came a slight dismissive smirk. Kind of a, yeah right, sure, you’re

setting up for a failure type smirk.

Looking back I can see the reasoning behind the tone and the attitude of the

response. Here I was, a 50 year old, out of shape guy, sitting at an indoor

Master’s swim meet on a cold December day. I was there timing other swimmers

rather than racing because I could barely swim 50 meters without having a

coronary. During a lull in the meet I got into a conversation with a triathlete. It

came up that I had not only set a goal of doing my first triathlon in a number of

years, but that I wished to undertake ten of them in the coming year. Mind you,

these would be sprint triathlons, but I still look back now and marvel either at my

naivete, my stupidity, or a little bit of both.

It’s good to set a goal, but it’s also important to set an attainable and reasonable

goal. There is nothing worse than to set a goal and then fail because the goal

was too difficult, too time consuming, or just too plain hard to meet. In retrospect

I went about this in the wrong manner. I should have set a goal to do one

triathlon. Once completed, I should have determined how it went and how I felt.

Then, and only then, should I have looked at doing a second triathlon. Instead, I

painted myself into a corner and then tried to get out of the room without getting

too much paint on my shoes and tracking it through the rest of the house.

In the end I could have gone back to that triathlete and gloated about how I

accomplished my goal. I ended up doing eleven triathlons, including an Olympic

and Long Distance course during the following nine months. However, that

person was simply trying to get me to see beyond my lack of patience and not

set myself up for failure. He was giving me good and sound advice that I

probably should have heeded. Much of the success in attaining my goal should

be attributed to a patient and understanding coach who probably rued the day he

took me on as a client.

Word to the wise – start slow and build. Don’t bite off more than you can

comfortably and easily chew. Patience is definitely a virtue, and it just may help

you avoid failure when setting a goal.