How are you aiming for - draft

As aspiring athletes, it is very easy for us to go wrong when it comes to setting our goals. Generally, the goals sit in two categories, in my experience. These are either event based goals: So I want to run a marathon or I want to do a Hyrox. Or they are outcome based goals. Something like I want to weigh this much by this time.

There was a really nice clip I saw from Simon Sinek where he talks about the variables we can control and variables we cannot. So he says that you can say, I want to lose weight and work towards it, but you cannot at the same time say how much and by when. So you can say I want to run a marathon, but not by when and how fast. Because you don't really have control on that.

What works is setting consistency goals. I call them action goals. So I set goals for my athletes based on showing up. So a goal for a complete new athlete is: In the next 8 weeks, show up and go to the gym 16 times. If she is able to go to the gym twice a week for 2 months, she will be better off. Definitely.

I cannot say how much better off and what will happen. That depends on genetics and her starting point and a million other factors that are uncontrollable and unknown. So there is no point setting goals on them. One thing I can be certain about is that if she does this, she would be better off.

And for the level of athlete this blog is for, it is enough.

And this works, at least for me. It is well documented that goals feel flat. Monuments that once felt insane, once you do them, can feel flat. After I ran my half marathon, the happiness lasted around 30 minutes. Then it was comparing times, looking at my ranking, looking for the next ones etc started. However, what stays with me is that I consistently trained and showed up for it for weeks on end. And that is what makes me happy!

Also sometimes, setting up these monument goals can lead us astray in our fitness journeys. You can set up a goal which overtakes your overall goal. And then you get consumed by this and then 8 months later, you still haven't made progress on your A goals. My aim is to loose weight and not to be able to run marathons. It is something that I enjoy doing, I would rather look a certain way than run a marathon 30 minutes faster.

There is also the problem with conflating goals. I want to lose wieght. And I want to run a marathon. They seem to be aligned, but they are really not. There might be a big correlation but these two things might not be the same.

So you can ride your bike, but this will primarily make you good at riding your bike. This may or may not help you lose weight.