When progressing through every phase of your healthy living journey think carefully about the how you set your objectives for change. Two factors to consider are:
The size of your goals
Lots of people have a goal to start running. Not everyone admittedly but it does seem to capture the imagination of many individuals. A crucial step in the transition from thought to action is to consider the size of the running challenge that would most motivate you.
For some, only completing a marathon will do. It’s a massive goal and that’s exactly what they need to get them going. For other would be runners, the idea of plodding through 26 miles is overwhelming. Enough in fact to put them off the whole idea. For these people completing a 5K might be a much more appealing prospect and one that would get them pulling on their trainers almost immediately.
The timing of your goals
Whatever the size of your goal, the timing of it will make a huge difference. To continue the above example, if you’re aiming to run a marathon, setting a goal to complete this within 7 days would perhaps create more pressure than excitement. Sure, it would be possible to get round the distance within that time frame but it might not be a particularly enjoyable experience and it may take a while to recover!
Similarly, taking on the challenge of running a 5K race with 6 months to prepare may not be enough to get you going. No matter what shape you’re in, you’ll be able to get yourself ready to run 5K in much less time than this so as an objective it’s great but not likely to change much in your life for the immediate future.
How to know when the size and the time is right
A great way to set yourself up with appropriately sized goals which are scheduled correctly to create real and lasting change is to use the visualisation techniques from day 12. This allows you to play with the size and timings of any objective you’d like to achieve in the future in a risk free environment. It’s a great investment of time as it ensures that you’re always fully committed to what you set out to do because you’ve visualised in detail when and how you’ll feel when you achieve success!
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