Set Goals The Scare You

We’re often too scared to set big goals. We’re afraid of failing. It’s in our DNA to avoid failure, so we tell ourselves to avoid things that may cause us to fail. We’re afraid of what other people may think. This, coupled with the fear of failing, will almost always prevent us from doing something big.

We become so content with being average or ‘normal’; we find so much comfort in our daily routines, that we rarely strive to change or become better.

One thing I’ve learned recently is that anything that’s worth doing is going to be hard.

Everything you do now that seems easy was indeed difficult at one point in time. Remember driving a car for the first time? You were probably a little nervous and scared. Now you do that every day without even thinking about it. Change is hard at first, but it’s always worth it in the end.

This last weekend I ran my first half marathon ever. Two months ago when I decided I was going to run it, I was trying to come up with a goal for myself. Based on my fitness level at the time, I knew I could run the 13.1 miles in under two hours. I thought I’d challenge myself a bit and set a goal of running it in under 1 hour 45 minutes. Holy smokes, I thought this was going to be hard.

I let that sit with me for a few days and the more I thought about it, the more I realized it wasn’t enough. I knew I wasn’t challenging myself as much as I could. I changed my goal to run the half marathon in under 1 hour and 30 minutes. This scared the crap out of me. I had never run that far or that fast in my life, how the heck was I going to do it in just two months?

For the next two months, I developed a training plan, stuck to it, and most importantly, believed in myself. I visualized how it would feel to cross the finish line in under 1 hour and 30 minutes. I literally wrote down on a piece of paper, “I am going to run this half marathon in under 1 hour and 30 minutes.” I became obsessed with this goal for 60 days.

This might seem excessive, but it worked. Two days ago I ran my first half marathon with a time of 1:27:52. My obsession paid off!

But… what if I would have set my goal even higher? To run under 1 hour and 20 minutes? While I did beat the goal I set for myself, my competitive nature can’t stop thinking about the 98 people who finished the race before me. I’ll save that conversation for another blog post… I digress.

Life is short. Who cares what people think? Who cares if you fail? Set goals that scare you. Set goals that challenge you. Whatever it is you desire to achieve in life, go after it. Always be specific in your goals—aim small, miss small. Don’t just say, “I want to be more fit." Or, "I want to be happier.” That’s too broad. Make your goals tangible and make your goals scary.