Suck it up and just start writing already…

Damn I’ve been busy lately. So busy in fact that I haven’t managed to write anything on this blog since the end of May. The gym’s growing, I’m managing a new junior graphic designer at work and trying to juggle family life in there somewhere too, etc…

Well actually, they’d just be excuses.

I’ve had a tonne of things I could have written something about but it seems I keep letting the moment slip without capturing it in Evernote. You see I have a brain like a sieve: if I don’t write something down as soon as I get a bee in my bonnet about it, well it’s gone… “Hi, I’m Tom…”

To get back on the horse I just decided to open the browser, then my blog and just start writing. The second sentence pretty much dissolves any possible excuse I could/would have made and so I thought the best way to get started would be to give you an update on some of the recent happenings at Adapt…

Goal setting workshop and weekly homework

The last month at Adapt has all been about Goal setting. I have actually managed to write some articles on the Adapt site and newsletter in the form of Goal ‘homework’. I mean, I’d been meaning to do that for ages – get our guys to start putting some targets on their training. We’re always hassling them to track their numbers but I hadn’t really given them an explanation. I hadn’t given them ‘the why’ so I decided that it’d probably be a good idea to run a goal setting workshop.

Whoa! A goal setting workshop you say – that sounds very Tony Robbins right? Well I added it to my task list in PODIO and then after realising what I was actually saying, put it on the back burner and flat out tried to ignore it.

Self perception is everything and if you’re like me (crave acceptance – most people do) then you don’t want to be stepping outside the box, promoting a fluffy, self improvement workshop that promotes dreaming big and achieving your goals do you? I didn’t want to scare people off?! People might think I was one of those crazy ‘self development’ Kool-Aid drinkers that ‘s all about changing lives and making the world a better place, etc. Whoa indeed?!

After being hassled by Becca to “set a date already…” I decided that I perhaps I could get away with running a workshop if I

1. got the other coaches involved (so I didn’t look stupid by myself); and
2. re labelled it to a “Q&A Session with the Coaches”…

That way if people asked about goal setting I could throw out some ideas and if they didn’t, we could spend time talking about other things like programming and nutrition – you know, normal gym stuff (that doesn’t make me look like a crazy ‘GS’ freak)

Well a date was set and to my amazement, about 15 peeps or so showed up. What was even more amazing was the fact that they happily sat there and listened to me speak about goal setting for just over an hour. There were a couple of questions but for the most part they soaked up everything I had to say. Perhaps I said too much or not enough but I wasn’t heckled, no tomatoes were thrown, the world didn’t end and we didn’t loose any members – Phew!

It wasn’t until the next week when some of the attendees started hitting me up, showing me their new goals and asking for further direction that I realised I needed to expand on this one workshop and spend time sharing some GS techniques with the rest of the crew.

So far I’ve been able to cover the following parts:

1. Come up with a list of 50 things (Goals)
2. Put timeframes to each (6 month, 12 months, 3, 5, and 10 years)
3. Chosen 5 or more of your goals and applied the S.M.A.R.T. mnemonic

I’m currently working on part 4 (to be released next week) and while you always hope that 1 or 2 people actually read the Adapt website (OK, so I know for a fact that more than 2 people do) It’s been pretty cool to find out that some of our guys are going a step further and actually writing down some goals.

Setting homework for my Adapt crew has really made me ask myself “Am I actually practising what I preach?” “Where’s my list of 50 things”, “Are my current goals relevant? what do I really want?” Because if I’m not, then it’s all BS. Well good news guys: I’ve been writing my goals down and even playing with some mind maps too. I’m starting to get the hang of it and the more I do, the more confident I feel about encouraging others to do the same.

Writing down my own goals and applying the SMART mnemonic to each has increased my focus, expanded my thinking and got me looking forward to the future with more hope than I’ve ever had at any other time in my life. I use to hassle a friend because she had a 5, 10 and 30 year plan and I was happy if I made it through the next 2 weeks. But the more I define my goals for any(and every) area of my life – the more purpose I feel I have and everyone wants to lead a life or purpose right?!

–
B