Big Hairy Audacious Goals

This fella is definitely big and hairy. And it appears that maybe your goals should be too.

In their book about building habits that last, James Collins and Jerry Porras believe there’s a huge amount of benefit in setting powerful, bold, life-changing goals that take you outside of your comfort zone. It should be a clear, compelling goal that literally inspires you.

A famous example of one of their so-called BHAG’s (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) might be America’s desire to put the first person on the moon. Of course you don’t need to travel into outer space, but you do need something that’s equivalent to shooting for the stars.

Make sure your goals are HARD

You’ll be very familiar with the SMART acronym commonly used with goals, the A of which stands for Achievable. We’ve long been told to set goals that we know we can achieve, and whilst we need to believe we can do it, it appears there’s a lot to be said for being a dreamer.

Edwin Locke and Gary Latham conducted a review of years worth of research into goal-setting; indeed across the studies they looked at, 40,000 people had set goals of some kind. What they uncovered was that difficult goals consistently led to higher levels of performance in a wide range of settings, indeed they note that…

“the highest or most difficult goals produced the highest levels of effort and performance.”

It’s thought that setting tougher goals helps us to focus our mind on the task at hand, filtering out other things that may distract from the main target. They also act to energise us, increasing our drive to succeed, and they help us to develop persistence as they can’t be achieved overnight. Finally, they appear to make us use our brains more, increasing ingenuity.

You’ll know you’ve set yourself a HARD goal if it is:

• Heartfelt: Do you have extremely important reasons for wanting to achieve your goal?

• Animated: Can you picture yourself clearly having achieved the goal? What’s it like? What does it look, feel and sound like to you?

• Required: Have you worked out clearly the tasks you need to do in order to achieve your goal? more on these shortly/

• Difficult: Have you identified the knowledge and skills you need in order to make your goal a reality.

Focus on the process

Because BHAG’s can take time, focusing solely on the outcome can be demotivating as even if you’re making progress, it can still seem like a long way away.

This is where you need to mix your gigantic goal with more frequent stepping stones. Process goals are ones where you set yourself targets around what you’re going to do as opposed to what you want as a result. So for example, when NASA wanted to put Neil Armstrong on the moon, they had to set themselves hundreds if not thousands of smaller goals around things like rocket design, fuel to be used, coping with G-Force, designing a moon-landing craft and of course getting the astronauts home safely.

Process goals should be at the forefront of your mind at all times, giving you daily tasks to achieve to inch your way towards the dream. Make a list of all the things you need to do and then identify the very first one you need to do. Once done you move on to the next and so on. Think of it as project management; you’re moving one step at a time towards completing your mission.

If you didn’t get chance to read my blog earlier this week on quick wins, make sure you take a look at it here as there’s more on process goals to help you.

So, dream big and you might be surprised what you can do.

What is it that makes achieving goals possible?

Last week I returned from the last of the three big fitness challenges I set myself this year. In April I ran the Rotterdam Marathon and was happy to get my PB of 3:14, still room for improvement but good progress. A month later my close friends Simon and Tom and I cycled form London to Brussels via Amsterdam, 330 miles in four days. We rode well together and felt strong at the end. That bode well for the big one, four days doing the Three Peaks of Snowdon, Scafell and Ben Nevis and cycling the 440 miles in between them. Whilst it was definitely one of the toughest things I’ve done, we did it!

Through experiences like these and working with so many people to help them achieve their goals, here are the key things that I believe make the difference:

The vision – whilst these things appeared daunting, I never waivered in my belief that I could do them. I drew on previous experiences of similar events and knew I had the fitness and determination to get through them.

The drive – motivation is key. This event meant a lot to me, Tom and Simon. We were raising money for Genetic Alliance, a charity supporting those with rare genetic conditions. Tom’s young son Dexter has one such condition and the sense of purpose meant we were never going to let tiredness or pain get the better of us. Personally it was something I’d had in my head to do for a long time and I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it.

The support – having the guys alongside me, and Vicky doing an amazing job driving the camper van made such a difference. Sharing experiences and having help when needed is essential for getting where you want to go.

The preparation – whilst we certainly made mistakes, we were well organised for the event with the right tools and gear. We’d planned our route and whilst at times we adapted it we always knew where we were.

The challenge – goals need to be tough enough to motivate you but not so tough that they seem unreachable. We certainly had to work to for it (10 hours of exercise a day) but we knew if we worked hard we’d get there.

 Compare your own goals against these and see where you might need to make changes. If you need any help, feel free to get in touch.

balance on...barriers

                                              Image courtesy of ddpavumba at Freedigitalphotos.net

Barriers, obstacles, challenges, problems, hurdles, difficulties, road blocks, impediments, hitches, snags or drawbacks. Whatever you call them, we all face them in many aspects of life and they often appear when we attempt to achieve our weight loss, health and fitness goals.

So what can you do about them? How do you get over them? Or round them, through them or even under them! What happens if you moved them out of the way instead, or got someone else to help you push them to one side? 

The truth is, there are many ways to overcome the challenges you face and achieve your goals. Hopefully this blog will provide you with a few ideas to help you get past yours and onwards to what you want.

First things first, you need to identify what the challenges will be, or may be when working towards your goals. How can you know this? You’re not psychic, you don’t have a crystal ball or a time machine, well it’s unlikely you do! So how do you identify these barriers?

          1) Think about things that have got in the way if you have tried to achieve the same or similar        goals in the past, what were they?

          2) Think about your life, what things take up your time? This doesn’t make them bad things, it just means that they may limit your ability to focus all of your efforts on you and what you want.

          3) Look forwards. Imagine yourself doing your new exercise routine, eating more healthily, getting to bed early, drinking plenty of water. What situations, scenarios, times and places might make it challenging to do these things?

Hopefully now you have a list of at least a couple of things that may get in the way. These may be common barriers like lack of time, work or family commitments, financial constraints, motivation and times of temptation or something more personal to you.

Failing to plan is planning to fail

Now you have your list of likely barriers, you’ve taken the first step towards overcoming them already! Just knowing that they might happen means that when they do you can say ‘I knew that was going to happen.’ Maybe you are psychic after all?

But the best thing about knowing what could go wrong is that you can plan in advance some methods for getting around, over, under or through these obstacles and challenges. And now is as good a time as any to start planning so you will need:

• A piece of paper and a pen (or an iPad, laptop or you’re phone if you’re more technologically minded).

• Lots of positivity and creativity!

• A cup of tea.

The three things method

For each of the barriers that you have identified, write down at least three ideas for how you can overcome them. They can be absolutely anything at all, it really doesn’t matter. If you have more than three ideas then fantastic. If you struggle to think of anything, ask yourself if you have ever had a problem. What did you do to overcome it? What skills or tactics can you take from it that you may be able to use here?

Once you have your methods, number them in order of preference as to which you think is best. If you have more than three that’s fine, just keep numbering them from favourite to least favourite.

You are now armed with a raft of solutions, so when those challenges come this is exactly what they will be, not problems, as you already have solutions. You have the ladder to get over the wall or the sledgehammer to knock it down. You have the raft to get across the river and you have the rope to climb your mountain.

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles/freedigitalphotos.net

It’s important that your perception of challenges changes to. You can see it as a threat, something that will come along and defeat you or you can see it as an opportunity, something that will make you rise to the very best you can be, performing amazingly in the face of adversity. A sportsperson may see a big event as a scary thing where they could get beaten, or they can see it as the chance for them to show just how good they are on the biggest stage. It’s time to find your very best you!

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles/freedigitalphotos.net

Enjoy the journey.

balance your life, balance your scales