The Most Important Thing To Remember With New Goals
This applies to your new 2021 resolution. Don't forget it.
A few months ago, I started upping my running mileage. I’ve always been a runner in some capacity, but during this year of lockdown, I wanted to burn extra calories and get stronger.
I dug deep. I recalled those high school track coach sentiments.
“No pain, no gain.”
“You need to outwork everyone else to win.”
“Don’t give up. Push through the pain.”
Well, a few weeks later, I was completely immobile. I had injured my ankle.
It turns out that it was an overuse injury. I was putting on more mileage than my tendons and ligaments could handle. Muscles grow faster because they have a good supply of blood—but tendons and ligaments aren’t vascularized nearly as much. They take much more time to repair.
I couldn’t understand it. I was eating fine. I wasn’t running a marathon every day. It just didn’t seem that crazy.
When I told one of my mentors about the injury (he’s an ultramarathon runner who used to run 100-mile races) he said something so simple and obvious I nearly slapped myself.
He said:
“You were expecting linear growth.”
Immediately, I realized he was right. I was expecting the mileage to increase week over week without fail. A perfectly straight line all the way to my outlandish goal.
That’s not how bodies work. That’s not how brains work. That’s not how goals work.
If we zoom out far enough, we look at trends and see nice straight lines. Over time, the stock market looks like it goes up pretty consistently. The only trouble with this vantage point is that we forget what the day-to-day feels like. It’s up and down and sometimes slightly violent.
Over time, we see a “line of best fit” that makes our progress look linear, but we know better than to believe that reality.
Reality looks more like this. Like injuries, setbacks, stoppages, roadblocks, hurdles, and seriously disappointing circumstances. It looks like missed milestones and failed goals. Anyone who has ever set a new year’s resolution should know that first hand.
It’s our expectation that creates our paralyzing disappointment. It’s that snuffed out hope that makes us say “welp, I tried.”
So, as you start January 2021 with your new resolutions and goals, I encourage you to examine your expectations.
If you anticipate the ups and downs, you won’t feel the need to quit as easily since that’s all just part of the journey. You’ll be more focused on the long-game instead of riding the nauseating day-trades that others are making.
You’re too smart to think that you’ll have linear progress.
It’s just not practical.
I think this is the most important thing to remember with new goals, resolutions, or any expectation. It feeds your resilience, which is the most valuable trait you can develop.
Expect and accept setbacks. Just don’t use them as an excuse to quit your mission entirely. Rest, recover, get your physical therapy. Get back in the fight.
See you tomorrow.