Tag Archives: goals

Measuring success

Pull out a ruler and measure how happy you are. Start a stop watch to measure your success. So many people measure success by their ability to achieve goals, but many of these same people reach their goals only to realize the goal wasn’t enough, they need more:

  • You won a tournament, but you still aren’t world champion.
  • You made your first million, now you need to make 10 million.
  • You a ran a personal best time, what’s the next goal?
  • Target reached? Look ahead to yet another target you haven’t yet achieved.

There’s nothing wrong with trying to be better. Nothing wrong with creating smaller targets on a path to larger targets. It’s good to have goals that push you to be your best. But what happens when you reach a final target? Is there always one more target to add? Is there always one more achievement you haven’t measured up to yet?

Maybe. And that’s ok, because that drive is what makes you so successful. But what does success feel like? Is it a sense of achievement or a sense of never being enough? When you hit a critical target on your journey ‘to’ success does the celebration feel great, or empty?

Who helped you along the way. You did you hurt or lose along the way? How much do these other people matter? How much of your time was focussed on your targets versus the people that helped you reach them? What else did you have to sacrifice?

Is success measured by what you did, or how you feel about it, or how others perceive you? What does success look like and feel like to you? How do you measure success?

How long does it last?

Who else benefited?

Where does happiness or fulfillment fit in? What achievements really matter? And how do you really measure these things?

Take a moment and celebrate where you are right now. Maybe, just maybe, success is reaching a point where you don’t have to do more to feel good? Maybe, just maybe, success is not a destination you haven’t yet reached… because if every measure of success has another target ahead of it, you’ll never feel successful enough. I may or may not know you, but I’m willing to bet you deserve more than that. If you don’t feel successful, maybe you are measuring the wrong things.

A tribe of #FitLeaders

For the last month I’ve been sharing some workout photos and conversation with other #FitLeaders on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/pam_mahood/status/1518706635832578049?s=21&t=kGq3G-MX5cZrhqzNpeCdzw

I didn’t follow the schedule.

I’m not sure if anybody did, and that didn’t matter to any of us. What mattered is that we shared; We worked out; We knew we had each other to look to for support.

I’m not aware of anyone training for something specific, we are just looking to stay fit. Like I said in a tweet:

Fitness is a lifelong journey and the destination is a more healthy tomorrow.

Find your fitness tribe, and get active. Future you will thank you. As Kelly says:

Take care of body, mind, sprit, and connection.

Back on track

I ended up only shooting arrows once, last week, for the entire month of March… and I didn’t shoot well. Today I was back on track.

My personal best is a 289. Today I short a 288 in my first round, with no 8’s (all gold):

Then I shot a 287 in my second round with two 8’s, but also my first three X round in a while:

I made a couple minor adjustments since my last outing and they seemed to really work for me. Now I just need to get back to shooting a bit more regularly, and I think very soon I can break into the 290’s. I’m approaching one year (April 25th) since I first hit 289, and so I hope to crack this before my 1 year anniversary.

If I keep shooting this consistently, I’m sure a new personal best is within reach!

Pessimism vs Optimism

How often do we give up on something before we even start?

… Don’t try something because the thought of failure is too great, or embarrassing?

… Decide that success is out of reach.

We blunt our own tools with pessimism. And while blind optimism isn’t necessarily good, a little optimism can go a long way, especially when our default is usually pessimism.

Choose to be optimistic, to seek out reasons to be fr and feel the positive difference in your life.

“Pessimism blunts the tools you need to succeed. Optimism is a faith that leads to success. “ ~ Bruce Lee

The slump

My personal best archery score in a Vegas 300 is 289. I’ve done this a few times, first in May of 2021 and most recently again in December. But I’ve been in a slump for most of 2022. In fact, I’ve had a couple scores lower than I’ve seen since before I got my personal best last May.

Today I seemed to have turned a corner and I scored a 288.

In fact, had I not had one bad shot at the top of the tenth end, I would have tied or even beaten my record.

Slumps are never fun, and this was one where I just didn’t know what I was doing wrong? I ended up moving closer and shooting again and again at closer range until I felt successful enough to move further away. This seemed to work.

I believe the slump is finally over and I’m anticipating a new record soon. It’s time to get the monkey off my back and finally score in the 299’s.

A messy desk

I’m not good with paper. I tend to have a desk filled with not-so-neatly piled papers. The piles accumulate and accumulate, then about 2 months after my last desk clean I look for something on my desk and I can’t find it, and that’s my cue that it’s time to clean it up again. Before that point, someone can ask me for something and I instantly find it, even if I have to go down a few layers. But when I have to start searching, not knowing where something is, that is no longer acceptable.

I also write notes on post-its and tend to have anywhere from 6-12 of them on the go at any time. It’s not efficient, and could be a lot more effective. I’ll find a first name and a phone number on a post-it note and have no memory of who the person is, and what I called them about. But, I didn’t throw the post-it away and it’s on my desk two months later.

I remember taking an organization course online that taught a filling system where everything went into a monthly folder. I failed to use this effectively for about 3 months, but the useless folders stayed on my desk for many more months after that… just a constant reminder of my inability to use them effectively.

Starting this coming week I’m going to try something new. I’m going to set two daily alarms, one in the morning and one in the late afternoon. The morning alarm will be to tidy my post-its so that I have a maximum of two post-its on my desk, with one being my ‘To-Do’ list for the day. My afternoon alarm will be to organize any paper that came my way, and get it in a folder or off my desk.

I’m setting a calendar reminder to look back at this post 2 months from now, that should be long enough to see what my desk looks like after after I do the clean-up on Monday.

Breaking the routine

I forgot to meditate yesterday. Thats fine if it’s just once and I get back to a routine, if I started a nice long streak today. But that’s my 7th time in a month I forgot, which would normally be how many I miss in 4-6 months. This suggests to me that the habit I had is no longer a habit.

A lesson that I used to follow from Atomic Habits was habit stacking. I used to write this post, then immediately meditate, then immediately do my cardio exercise. I actually started the stack with meditation, but I had to switch because I found that if I hadn’t written first, I spent my meditation actually thinking about writing rather than focusing on meditation.

Recently I’ve been writing at different times of the day, like just before bed. And I’ve been waking up later than planned, or spending an hour of my morning shovelling the driveway… My habit stack, my pattern of accomplishing 3 daily healthy living goals in a row, has been broken.

I’m reminded of this motivational quote, though a quick search didn’t lead to an author to give credit to:

“If it is important, you will find a way. If not, you will find excuses.”

I explained the reason(s) I have been missing my meditation a lot, but ultimately those reasons are just excuses. If this goal of meditating every day truly is something I want to do, if it’s really important to me, I will find a way.

If I break my stack, if I don’t meditate as part of my morning routine, I will immediately set an alarm on my phone to remind me to meditate at night. But the best thing I can do is my morning habit stack, and on that note, I’m off to meditate. Because the best day to start a new streak is today!

~~~___~~~___~~~___

Related: I just remembered that I shared that quote before on my post: Leading Change – 3 Images, which is a concept that I’ve used in presentations, and have thought a fair bit about since writing it back in 2014. I’m going to use the first image to go with this post, (which email subscribers to my blog won’t see unless they go to my blog).

Sticking to what works

On New Year’s Eve I shared my Healthy living goals reflection 2021. In this post I essentially said that I’m sticking with my old goals, with just a couple minor adjustments. Since then, this decision has bugged me a bit. I have felt a bit like I should have been more ambitious.

But this morning I realized that my goals are great. I have worked hard to maintain a healthy lifestyle the past few years and I’ve done far better than I have for a couple decades before that. Why should I add to this and push myself in a way that makes it hard to meet my daily goals?

I need to realize that when it comes to self care, maintaining a good plan is better than constantly striving to do more. It’s better to stick with what works than it is to push myself to a point where it gets too hard to achieve daily. Working out can include tougher workouts if I’m inclined, but I just had a few workouts that were really hard, then my body was begging for a rest. The soreness actually affected my sleep. That’s not healthy.

I’m not saying I won’t push myself every now and then, but I do need to realize that maintaining a good plan is better than creating a too challenging plan that I’ll give up on. ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.

My healthy living goals are really good. They have worked wonders for me for the past 3 years, and I need to accept that sticking with the same goals is an achievement, and not something I need to feel disappointed about because I didn’t add more to them.

Healthy living goals reflection 2021

It’s that time of year again when I look back at my healthy living goals sticker chart, and also plan for next year.

This was the post at the end of 2020. And this was for 2019, the year I started this.

2021 in review:

Workouts: 287days or 78.6%

Writing: Daily blog 100%

Meditation: 346 days or 94.8%

Archery: 129 days or 35.3% (Goal was 100 days so actually 129%.)

This was an awesome year for fitness. I am about 6-8 pounds heavier, with a fair bit of increase in size in my upper body and small but noticeable increases in my quads. I feel fit and strong, and I think I only had a couple minor slow downs from back pain, with minimal recovery time. I still need to stretch more, and I still rely a bit too much on deep massage therapy to keep the pain away, but I know that slow, careful strength progress, and more time using my standing desk at work, has significantly reduced the amount of regular pain I’ve had to deal with in my lower back.

Last year I did one more workout in the year… but it was a leap year so I’m going to call it even. I hope to maintain this next year too. Working out slightly more than 3 out of every 4 days for a full year is an excellent goal.

My daily blog has been going strong since July 2019… and while I could probably stop tracking this, I want to keep it as a goal for next year. The chart is a good motivator, and there is nothing wrong with having one of my goals be something that I commit to every single day.

Meditation: I missed 13 days from January to November, and 6 more in December. It has not been a good month for meditation. My goal this year was supposed to be tracking days when I meditate more than once to increase my time. I did this 6 times in January and didn’t continue. It did not become a habit. This year I want to increase the total time by going longer than 10 minutes on weekends, and doing more self-guided meditations mid week, so that mini lessons on the Calm App are not part of my meditation time. This is a more realistic way to take my daily meditation to the next level.

Archery was a new goal this year and I hoped to shoot a total of 100 days. I’m thrilled that I hit 129 days, and my goal next year will be 120.

So, no new goals next year, just a couple adjustments on my current goals. I do plan to write more, but I’m going to calendar that, rather than chart it. So 2022 will be about keeping the good habits going… if you have a few goals you’d like to track, buy yourself a year long calendar and make it happen! (Here are my tips.)

May your 2022 be amazing!

Head Games

Today I tied my personal best score in archery at 18 metres (20 yards) on a 3 spot Vegas target. I scored a 289 for the 4th time. 290 has been elusive.

My one bad shot was way off. I punched the trigger rather than using back tension to release the arrow. That’s all it takes at this point, one off shot and I don’t break my record. Also, 5 of my 9’s were on my third target. That’s worth noting. But it wasn’t one shot that was my problem, it was my headspace. I had just scored a 287 before this. Then after 4 ends, with two 30’s and two 29’s, I knew that I was ahead of getting 290. I let that get in my head.

I put a lot of pressure on myself and I didn’t perform to the level I could. It wasn’t the one 8, it wasn’t the five 9’s on my third arrow, it was the head games I put myself through when I thought I could beat my record.

This is a part of my sport I need to get better at… reducing the self-imposed pressure and thinking more about just one thing… the shot I’m taking.

290 is in reach, but it need to get there one arrow at a time. More focus on what I’m doing, and less focus on the score.