RobKinney.com

Imagine for a second…

Goals

Rob

　　You hear a lot of talk about goals and how you have to set goals and strive for them and that is all fine and good, goals are something that we each need; but are we working towards them in the way we should be?
　　Many times, we tend to set these grand goals that we feel like we will never be able to attain. But, there are a few things that we fail to miss. Large goals are made up of A LOT of much smaller goals. Avoiding other things, responsibilities, activities, problems and issues, is not working towards a goal even if it does get you there.
　　I’m a runner, it’s an activity that I blame my brother for getting me involved in. There are times when you go out to run, your grand goal for that activity may be to run 6 miles. However, that doesn’t get you out the door, many times it will keep you from going out the door. To complete that 6 mile run, you will have to develop a lot of little goals along the way. In the back of your mind, you may be thinking of and remember that your overall goal is to complete 6 miles but first, you have to get dressed. Your first goal may simply be getting out of bed, getting dressed and putting on your running shoes. This can be a difficult goal to accomplish because that first cup of coffee is calling to you. As silly as it sounds, you push through it and stick with determination to get ready to go run. Then you ‘run’ into your next obstacle, getting out of the door. This can be easy on a beautiful spring morning, but it’s not a beautiful spring morning. Yet, you find your reason to open the door and step outside. Maybe it is as simple as, “Hey, I got dressed for a reason.” But whatever it takes, everyone and everyday is different. You start out walking, just to ‘loosen up’. Then you begin to pick up the pace and start jogging a bit. As you move further down the road, your body begins to do weird things, muscles begin to hurt, you start to gasp for air and your mind begins to question why you are doing this. Your mind starts to try to convince you that you’ve ran far enough, you could quit early and head home (nobody would know the difference). Your mind tells you all the reasons you can’t or don’t want to continue, convincing you to quit. You decide to set forth some determination instead of giving in. You set a smaller goal, ‘I’m going to make it around the corner’ or ‘just to the next telephone pole’. At the completion of each smaller goal, you continue and you set new small goals. Before you know it, you have reached back home and have completed your run of 6 miles, accomplishing your grand goal!
　　Now that may seem a bit overgeneralized but that is usually how goals should be approached. Too many of us set a grand goal and only focus on that, rather than seeing and focusing on all of the small goals along the way. It’s like sitting on the couch in front of the TV and we keep repeating to ourselves, “I’m going to run 6 miles”. We can keep telling ourselves that but, it doesn’t get us dressed and out the door. We can’t forget about the small goals along the way. It is each one of these small goals that create the grand goal.
　　There are many times when we get sidetracked towards our goals. We end up running away from problems, issues, responsibilities or activities. There are ties we try to convince ourselves that we are doing the right thing because we are being responsible. It is kind of like going out running and working extra hard to avoid cars. If we change direction every time we see a car, we may eventually accomplish the grand goal we set but we didn’t do it in the most efficient manner. If we allow the winds of change to plot the course for us to reach our grand goal, it may take a long time to get where we want to go, if ever. Instead, if we focus on the small goals it takes to reach it, we will get there in a much more productive method.
　　Putting our energy into avoiding the distractions is not the way to reach our goals. Additionally, it adds that much more stress and worry into our lives, if we just accept it and let it pass, handling it if need be rather than letting it control our actions, we are much better off.
　　It is a matter of where you choose to put your focus. If you are not focusing on the correct thing, then your activities will not be congruent with what you want to accomplish. All of your energy will be wasted on the minor things, issues, problems or unneeded responsibilities that take up your time and sap your energy. This will lead to frustration and can even lead to depression.
　　There are times that you think you must take care of these issues or that if you don’t do it, no one will. You think you have to take care of it, because it is important. But all of that is wrong, it is only your mind trying to convince you to give up early, to quit, to change your focus.
　　You need to keep your mind on what your main, grand goal is. Focus on that and create smaller goals along the way that are in line with that grand goal. Accomplishing this will allow you to complete your grand goal. Now that you have a good grasp of that, it is time for me to go run.

Never, never, never give up!

Rob

　　Giving up. We all feel like giving up once in a while. Sometimes the going seems to get too tough, we never feel like we are getting the break we are looking for. We fee like everything is conspiring against us. We are ready to throw in the towel. There are times when it feels like everything is against us or that everything we try, doesn’t work out or turns to crap. We begin to take this personally. We begin to feel like failures.
　　The only true failure is when you quit. When something doesn’t work and you have to try a different approach, that is not failure, that is learning what works and what doesn’t. Failure is when you fall down and don’t get back up. Failure is when you quit working and no longer put effort towards completing the task, that is failure. Failure is not a product of who you are but rather it is a result of your action or inaction towards a project. In other words, just because your idea did not work out this time, it does NOT mean the YOU are a failure, it only means that your idea did not work at this time.
　　But what happens when we quit? Nothing, that’s what. Nothing happens because everything stops. To really see what happens when you quit, we need to take a look at what happens when we are working towards something that is seemingly unattainable. When we are working towards that goal that is just out of reach, we are trying to bring together many different things in the world and we are trying to get them lined up with one another. These things are in movement and slowly taking their place to make your goal possible, you just don’t always see how they are falling into place. When you throw in the towel and quit, everything stops. Those things that were falling into place now have no where to go and everything just stops and falls apart. The problem is, you don’t know how close those pieces are to coming together. If they were to come together, all the parts of your goal would fit and you would have success. But when quit it simply ends and success may have been just around the corner but you will never know. You won’t know because your work towards your goal collapses.
　　True success is pushing through those times when we want to throw in the towel and quit. That is the only way we will see success, to keep pushing and striving when it is most difficult. But that can be one of the most difficult things to do because we feel that we are at the end of our rope. We feel that we have tried everything and that everyone and everything is against us. But when we push through those times, we are showing that we are not willing to give up, we won’t take no for an answer and we will only accept excellence.
　　To push through can take perseverance. Sometimes you may have to try anything you can, even little things because you may be at your wits end and out of ideas of what to try next or how to get around something. Other times, you may have to ignore everyone around you who keeps telling you that what you are doing is futile. Which reminds me of the old Star Trek quote, “Resistance is futile” and that is how we need to look at our goal.
　　These roadblocks, the times when we feel like giving up and quitting is the universe’s way of prodding and molding us. We are being shaped into what we need to be and the way we need to think to make our goal a success. Think of it this way, our goal is not strong enough, big enough, or have enough resources to stand on its own. We also are not strong enough, think clearly enough or have refined our goal well enough to present our goal. If we release our goal to the world as we first conceive of it then their would be so many holes in it that it would not work. It would fail and as true to human nature, we would internalize it and believe that we are failures. The roadblocks are there to shape and mold our dreams and ourselves to become stronger and better.
　　You could also look at those roadblocks as practice. The more you practice something, the better you get. The roadblocks are there to force us to practice and get better. The more we work at improving our goal, the better it and ourselves will become.
　　What else can we do instead of throwing in the towel and quitting? There are several things you can do to persevere, while simple on the outside, many can be difficult to implement. Here is a list of 5 things you can do instead of quitting.
　　Ignore the temptation to quit – When you begin to feel like everything is against you and you want to give up, stop. Don’t give into it. Just refuse to accept it. This can be the biggest key to pushing through.
　　Look for the holes in your goal – There is a reason that things aren’t falling into place, that reason may be that there are holes in your plan, seek them out and correct them.
　　Take apart your idea – Along with looking for holes, look at each part of your idea and see how it flows and what is missing or in excess.
　　Break your goal down into parts, make it less overwhelming – All of the different pieces of your goal and everything that has to come together can become quite overwhelming. This may be a big part of what you are feeling when you want to give up. Accept it for what it is and then break it into easier to manage pieces.
　　Take a break – save sometime for yourself and give yourself a rest, it doesn’t have to be all about your goal. By giving yourself a break, you may find that the ideas you are seeking will come to you as you rest.

　　Winston Churchill said it best, “Never…never, never, never give up!”