Setting Impossible Goals
Yesterday concluded the campaign I started when my Dad passed away January 10, 2022. My Dad was a very active man his entire life. Infact, I believe this is why he was able to live such a full, long life. To learn more about his active life, you can read HERE.
I decided one way for his family to honor him would be to count up our accumulated miles running, walking, hiking or biking. I knew we had a few very active members of the family as well as some not so. It was important to me to set a goal that I thought we could reach. I am usually that person…only set those goals that you know are reachable. Well, when we were at the funeral dinner and I was coming up with the number…I knew that the campaign would last until what would have been Dad’s 90th birthday: April 11, 2022 so I wanted it to somehow have 90 something in the goal. I landed on 900 miles knowing that with just a few extra people added to those who I knew were already active, we would be able to make up the difference fairly easily. Well…one of my nephews suggested 9000 miles which I laughed at but did say, “If we go viral, I guess that could happen.” After all, I do have a few SM influencers in my extended family.
Each week I reported our progress towards the initial goal of 900 miles. Well, wouldn’t you know that within just three weeks, we surpassed that goal. I decided to set the goal again and not being brave enough to go to 9000, I set it at 3690 because that seemed like a good 90ish number {and reachable}. We had 14 weeks to complete our goal and we reached the {2nd stage} of our goal by week 9 or 10. We were definitely gaining momentum!
By the 14th week, I had several new contributors add their miles and we had our biggest reporting week ever and ended up with over 5,000 miles!!
Here is my take away: I wish I had gone for 9,000 from the beginning. I think there is a good chance we would have reached it. BUUUUT I have to say that I am okay with just thinking the impossible goal and then voicing a target that felt safe to me. I {we} got there easily and then I was able to feel safe about a 4x that goal and then we surpassed that 2nd goal. Even though I never felt brave enough to voice the 9,000, I kept on reaching and encouraging others to join in.
I would liken my goal setting to what we term in Life Coaching as bridge thoughts. A bridge thought is something that helps you get from your present state of belief to a state that you can only dream about achieving. 3690 was my “bridge goal” getting me from my safe 900 to …..over 5,000!
An example of using bridge thoughts would be if you feel that you have zero control in your life presently. If you let yourself really dream of what your life could be…I mean talking about real out there dreams…it would be something like: I am a woman who is in control of her life physically, spiritually, intellectually and emotionally thriving on the daily.
Wow! Who wouldn’t want that?! But here is the thing, that thought doesn’t help at all if it is not believable for you. It actually could be discouraging and stop any progress you might be able to make. A bridge thought to that might be: “I am a woman who is learning how to control areas of my life.” See how that works? Once you get good at practicing that thought, then you can keep working towards gaining evidence toward it’s truth and therefore your capabilities.
Next time I set a similar miles goal, I can now use the evidence I have established to help me have a bigger belief. Just as you will gather your own evidence to move you along the belief bridge.
Impossible goals are available to all of us! Share yours with me, I’d love to hear them and I would love to help you reach them!! If you need help with bridge goals, I got you!
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xoKathleen
