I have a bad habit of just throwing myself into things and then dropping them. Or worse, thinking of doing something and then never getting around to it in forever. I don’t have a support system like most. When I announce my ideas, they usually get shot down. Yet, I’ve learned that when I say “I will” then the naysayers tend to shut up.
One thing that bugs me about a lot of people I know is that they often announce what they plan to do, yet never follow through. You know the types, “Next week, I’m going to start working out.” “In two months, I’m going to start looking for a job.” “Next year, I think I want to travel.” Those are admirable plans, but there are no goals involved. Why are you going to workout? What kind of job are you seeking? Where do you want to go? There are no answers. You hear them state these things so often, that you tend to tune the out.
In July, I decided that I was going to run the LA Marathon in 2010. So far, the response has been muted. This is in contrast to when I had announced my plans to run the Marathon this year (before the date change and injuries). I found that the people in my life were extremely unsupportive. Where a simple, “Way to go!” would have sufficed, I got responses like, “You? Run? HAHAHA” or “I guess you have to stop smoking.” or the lamest, “You couldn’t get my fat ass to run anywhere.” [Selfish side note: When I say that I'm running, I don't need to hear about YOU.] I have always been aware that there are those who will never support your endeavors because they’re too scared to try anything. It’s easy for them to mock you when you just announce vague plans. It’s harder for them when you have them etched in stone.
But sometimes we sabotage ourselves. I certainly have. And I have to be on the lookout for it. I haven’t been able to run or exercise for some time now. First, we went to the Bay Area. Then we had 2 weeks of bad air quality due to fires and a concurrent heatwave. Now I’m sick. The urge for me to exercise is still there, but I know that all it takes is one more week and I’ll be back to doing nothing. This is unthinkable with my goal to run the LA Marathon. So I’ve decided to come up with smaller goals to help me achieve the larger one.
These are my smaller goals:
EVERYDAY
- 50 sit ups
- 100 jumpropes
- Walk my kids to school
WEEKLY
- Run 3x a week
- Tennis once a week
- 1 hour of cardio 3x a week
- Swim laps 2x a week
MONTHLY
- Run a 5K or 10K
- Go hiking.
- Bike
Seeing this list broken down into small attainable goals already makes it easier on me to see the as doable. Besides, now that this out there, I can’t not do it. You can keep me honest by checking in on my MapMyFitness profile.
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The Goaltending by Anika Malone, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.