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January-February 2010 |
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Goals and the Sporting Life: Decide Upon
Have you ever stopped to notice how much our language of setting and reaching goals is like the language of sports? In fact, the language of sports has become so much a part of the lexicon that we use it and hear it every day, often without even thinking about it.
It’s common, for instance, to talk about achieving our goals in terms of “clearing hurdles” — a metaphor from track and field, or “hitting a home run,” a baseball metaphor, or “reaching the end zone,” a football metaphor. Even the word “goal” is rich in sports as in a metaphor for soccer.
The relationship between sports and goals is so close that we often look to those who make their living from physical performance — athletes, dancers and coaches — for tips on how to reach goals. “Survivors” are also a metaphor for goals and how to achieve them because like athletes and coaches, their “survivorship” is tied directly to their physical stamina, mental performance and attitude.
Olympians like track stars Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Marion Jones and Carl Lewis, cyclists like Greg LeMond and Lance Armstrong, and coaches like Red Auerbach, Vince Lombardi and George “Sparky” Anderson set and reached goals most of their lives. The process used by them and the survivors I know — Chuck Nowlin and Roger Paulmino — translates into tips we can follow personally and then professionally.
Tip: All meaningful change must start from within; it’s a commitment to you to take the steps necessary to improve. Goal setting and goal achieving are two of those commitments.
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Thoughts for Today “Success is that old A, B, C: Ability (or Attitude) Brains and Courage.” — George Burk, speaker, author “The quality of your life is directly related to the quality of your attention. And the quality of your attention is directly related to the quality of your intention. — Deepak Chopra, writer “If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can transform 1 million realities.” — Maya Angelou, poet “At the age of 6, I wanted to be a cook. At 7, I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.” — Salvador Dali, artist “No task is a long one but the task on which one dare not start. It becomes a nightmare.” — Charles Baudelaire, poet “Do it big or stay in bed.” — Larry Kelly, educator “First say to yourself what would you be; and then do what you have to do.” — Epictetus, Greek philosopher |
Visualize your big win (your goal.) Before you can start working towards a goal, you must be able to see it in your mind’s eye. Many successful athletes, speakers, and teachers lay awake at night and spend some quiet times thinking about how they can perfect their form and technique by mentally seeing themselves being successful. When you rehearse it in your mind enough, it becomes second nature when you actually do it. Our brain is a computer, when we program it with positive affirmations and pictures, positive things can and often do happen. If you don’t practice this process, think of the alternative.
Practice daily to make setting and achieving goals a habit. It was Aristotle who said, “Quality is not an art, it is a habit.” So then are positive thinking and setting and achieving goals. Make your goals an integral part of your personal and professional strategic plan that includes a vision and mission statement. People who perform at their physical and emotional peak train constantly, developing physical and mental stamina and cultivating practices that help them succeed. Its trial and error, taking what you know works and refining it while discarding what you know doesn’t work.
Dancer Martha Graham in her autobiography Blood Memory wrote, “I believe we learn by practice.” Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to love by practicing right living, the principles are the same.
“In each it is the performance of a dedicated, precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, which comes (the) shape of achievements. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired,” she continued. This single act is just as vital when a person must learn how to walk again, feed himself, talk, and manage the physicals and emotional pain and begin to regain (and remember) the many things an injury or illness often takes away.
Stay focused, don’t be distracted. Many athletes and survivors have overcome great physical pain and worked through it to accomplish their goal. Athletes and survivors alike have trained themselves to keep their mind on their goal and ignoring everything else. The pain is there; it’s just that they have trained themselves to not notice it. This too can become an initial goal. Staying focused also means to remove yourself, mentally and physically, from people and events that are or may become a distraction. The saying, “Quitters never win, and winners never quit” is true and can mean the difference between life and death.
Pursue your dreams, don’t settle for mediocrity. In his book, “Success Is a Choice,” Rick Pitino, former University of Kentucky and Boston Celtic basketball coach wrote, “We can always do more than we think we can. The trick is to keep demanding the effort from ourselves, to not be content with small victories, to not settle for mediocrity.” From my personal experience, I know how “small victories” can be a stepping-stone to greater success. One small victory after another often leads to the ultimate goal, whether it’s winning the track meet, or the game of life.
“Motivated people…purposely set difficult goals for themselves, because they realize that if the challenge isn’t worth, the payoff will be empty and unsatisfactory,” Pitino wrote. It’s important to remember that you drive the goal, don’t let the goal drive you. Through experience and practice you’ll know if a goal is too easy or too difficult. And like the fine line between sanity and insanity, goal setting is a process that must be developed, refined, and learned, all the while retaining your personal and professional perspective as to what you are doing and why your are doing it. If you don’t, then it isn’t any fun, challenging and rewarding, and can drive you “crazy.” The ultimate question you must ask is how bad do you want it?” Remember: Life is not a sprint; it IS a marathon.
The following acronym is an effective tool to set goals and help you clear the hurdles in your life.
G= Get a Goal! Create a clear goals statement.
O= Outline a plan. Start with your ultimate goal and plan backwards, identifying the steps required to reach each mini-goal (objective) along the way.
A= Act on your own. Devote time, effort & resources each day to work on your goal(s).
L= Learn from your progress, success, and failures.
S=Systematize your efforts. Turn actions into goal achieving habits. Make it an integral part of your life.
“Captain George” J. Burk, USAF (Ret.), plane crash and burn survivor, motivational speaker, author & writer. www.georgeburk.com, PO Box 6392, Scottsdale, AZ 85261-6392, phone: 800-769-8568; cell phone: 480-212-6392
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