Goal Setting: Are You Exercising or Are You Training?
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It’s a mindset shift that’s recently helped me in a lot of areas, and I think it’ll do the same for you.
In your business and life…are you exercising or are you TRAINING?
There is a big difference.
I recently read this article “Why You Should Stop Exercising & Start Training” from Hone Life. The following quote really stood out to me.
When you train, you prepare more than just your body. You anticipate the obstacles you’ll face, the mindset you’ll need, and the feeling of accomplishment you’ll achieve if you perform well. And therefore you prepare with intensity and focus, connecting your mind, body, and spirit to the activity.
It is about dedicating your actions to your future goals. And it is as applicable to business as it is to life.
Setting Goals in Your Personal Life
I participated in my first half marathon on May 17. And you’d better believe I was doing more than hoping to be ready on race day.
I trained!
I used a clear plan with milestones to track my progress against.
(Click here if you care to see my half-marathon training regimen.)
Training helped me to get excited about this half-marathon. Each day I trained and I got a better time or I went a further distance, I felt a sense of accomplishment. While I ran, I knew exactly what my goal was.
Think of how much more rewarding that is compared to simply running for exercise.
Setting Goals in Business
If you’re just “exercising” in business, then you’re simply going through the motions. You may have a general idea of the goal or outcome you want, but it’s hard to tell if you’re getting any closer to that outcome or just “staying busy.”
On the other hand…if you’re really TRAINING, then you’ve got a clear plan with activities and measurable milestones that will lead you to your desired goal.
On June 15th, I launched my book Connect: The secret LinkedIn playbook for generating leads, building relationships, and dramatically increasing your sales. Do you think I was crossing my fingers that it does well? Of course not! We set a specific goal of a certain number of pre-orders, and put together a very clear plan for achieving our objectives.
We far exceeded our goals, even before the book was available, and landed on the Wall Street Journal Best Seller list in its first week!
Click here if you’d like to learn more about Connect.
In business, exercise is the equivalent of people wasting time on LinkedIn. Logging in every day just to check in, look at some discussions, maybe leave a comment or two, see who’s looked at their profile. But no plan and no real objective. No milestones. No future goal.
When You Set Your Next Goal, Keep In Mind…
Whether in business or personal life, you can’t get where you’re trying to go, you can’t achieve your goal, if you’re just going through the motions. Even if you do get there, you either won’t recognize it or won’t be able to appreciate it.
Align all of your actions with goals. Make what you’re doing meaningful to you.
Start training.
Align all of your actions with #goals. Make what you’re doing meaningful to you. Click To Tweet
Take a look at a current personal or professional goal you’ve set. Are you just going through the motions, or are you TRAINING? I’d love to hear what that difference means to you.
Let me know in the comments below.
