Motivation ......... Getting to Your Why Power
Forget about willpower. It's time for why-power. Your choices are only meaningful when you connect them to your desires and dreams. The wisest and most motivating choices are the ones aligned with that which you identify as your purpose, your core self, and your highest values. You've got to want something, and know why you want it, or you'll end up giving up too easily.
Today we are going to go through our 6 step goal setting formula that’s going to help you achieve any fitness goal you aim to achieve.
STEP 1 – WHAT DO YOU WANT?
The first step of any goal is figuring out what exactly do you want, so we have got to get crystal clear on what we want to achieve. Most people are vague with their goals and they don’t get concise, they don’t put a deadline on it. So we want a deadline and a definite result.
So for example, I want to be able to complete an adventure race by May 31st. So right there we have a deadline, we have an exact result and we have crystal clear clarity.
STEP 2 – WHY DO YOU WANT IT?
Step 2 is figuring out your why. What emotions deep down want us to achieve this. Most people have a superficial reason for wanting to achieve something. They don’t give it much thought. They want to do it because someone else has done it and they don’t think about it themselves. So we need to peel the onion and figure out why does this matter to me.
The stronger the why, the stronger your chances are of achieving a big goal.
Find motivation. Why would you want to complete an adventure race in the first place? Create an emotional attachment and get to your "why" ......
I had a client recently called Susan tell me "my 20 year school graduation is next year I have gained so much weight since having a baby and want to look good for it." BINGO!! Now we have a motivating goal.
Identifying your "why" power vs your "will" power is critical. You want to be able to get up and go for years to get there. When your reason is big enough you will go out, find and execute the "how". The person who has a clear burning white hot why will always defeat the best of the best doing the how.
STEP 3 – WHAT HAS STOPPED ME BEFORE?
Step 3 is figuring out what are the breaks? What are the things that stopped us in the past? So if we have failed with our weight loss or strength training goal or whatever it is in the past there are most likely some things that have happened that have stopped us in our tracks. If we identify these road blocks or these breaks before we tackle the goal for another time then we respond with appropriate responses for when these issues come up.
STEP 4 - WHO CAN HELP?
Step 4 we are going to figure out the team and the resources that can help us achieve our goal, the people most likely that have done these things that we want to do in the past. So if we want to run an adventure race for example there are people that have done this before and by talking to these people and by working with these people and hiring them as a coach or a mentor we can fast track the learning curve and cut out any mistakes that we don’t need to make.
STEP 5 – BREAKING DOWN THE GOAL
Step 5 is breaking it down and programmed into manageable, measurable chunks. So we have the big goal and its overwhelming and scary...which is good, it should be scary. Any worthwhile goal should be a little bit scary but then we do need to break it down to make it less overwhelming. So instead of trying to jump from A to Z, we go from A to B and we gradually get there toward our end result.
STEP 6 WHAT IS THE NEXT STEP?
We have broken our goal down and now we just need to take action and take that first step because when you take that first step and open that first door the next step appears and the next step appears and the next step appears. Most people spend their lives in fear. Paralyzed in fear, they are afraid to take that first step, afraid to put themselves out there, afraid to fail. But when we take that first step everything else becomes possible, so take that step in faith and the rest of the staircase will appear.
