So many goals!

We all have them right?

Personal goals...

Health and fitness goals...

Business goals...

I was in my Spin class last night and looked down at my water bottle reminding me to drink something every hour. And it made me realise how many goals we set ourselves in life. I’ve been doing fitness classes for 10 years now but I’ve only been doing Spin for 9 months and I don’t feel that I’m getting any better at it. On speaking to an instructor it turns out my breathing is quite shallow and my new goal is to breathe in through my nose a whole lot more, all day, every day, not just in a class.

So, not only am I trying to beat my calorie burn in that class, close all the rings on my watch every day, do 3 classes a week, fit in some strength training, drink 2 bottles of water a day, walk 10,000 steps, get the family to eat as many unprocessed foods as possible, drink less wine, remember to take my vitamins, I am now trying to breathe more rhythmically through my nose.

And that’s just my health goals!

There’s other personal goals we all have, such as reading 10 pages a day, saying yes more, saying no more, saving for that big holiday, ticking things off your bucket list before a big birthday, spending more time with your family, taking some time for yourself.

Then there’s business goals, taking on X new clients, making X per month/year, posting on social media more, scaling up part of the business, better time management, saying yes more, saying no more.

The list goes on! And a lot of them become contradictory, especially if we want more time to ourselves but also want time to spend with the family, how do we do that? 

Having goals is great and they keep us all motivated but when it all gets a bit much we need another strategy. I think the key is learning when it’s good to say yes, especially if it challenges us in a developmental way. But recognising when we might need to say no, to that social engagement, that extra class we don't really need, that friend/client/colleague who has just asked for a little bit more.

Most of all, our goal should be to recognise that we should strive for progress, not perfection and just enjoy the journey.