The Goal That Kept Growing
I am a goal-getter. I like to set goals that will stretch me but are fully attainable; and then I like to get my goals – as in crush them! By continuously setting goals that stretch me just a little past my current abilities, I expand my abilities further and further. Once I’ve accomplished a goal, I then think ‘ok, if I could do X, I wonder if I could do Y?’ along the same lines as my previous goal. And that is what happened with my running goal.
On November 6, 2016, I had just returned from a trip to Italy. I was there for work and had some downtime, so had invited my mom to join me. We had a blast – we walked and ate our way through Rome and had a few glasses of wine each day. On the flight back from Italy, I had been thinking how I wanted to get back into running, which I hadn’t done any of while away on that trip. In my jet lagged brain, I decided that a 100-day challenge would be something different and fun for me to embark upon. I set really simple rules – I would run for a minimum of 2 miles a day, every day, for 100 days in a row. I started out and the first few runs were 2.00 miles exactly, on a treadmill, and at 1.99 miles I was staring at my distance tracker waiting to watch that last hundredth of a mile finish. As the days progressed, fitting in the time to run and accomplishing the distance was easier for me.
During the 100 days, I experienced a few challenges, namely travel for work and illness. I had a trip that included flying halfway around the world, so made sure that I would meet my running goal every 24 hours from my home time zone, which was a workaround allowing me to continue my streak. This meant that I jumped off a plane in Asia and immediately found a treadmill to run on because I only had an hour left within that window. Another time I was extremely ill and put my head down on my arms on my treadmill and literally just let my feet move for the two miles. Aside form those, which truly were the few and far between exceptions, I noticed that after the first 10 days, I was no longer feeling like this was a task I had to do, but rather something I wanted to do. And then after about 50 days, I realized that if I did not run first thing in the morning (which was not the case prior to this challenge), that my day felt off. I also noticed that while at the beginning of this self-imposed challenge I would run 2.00 miles, I was now running more 3.75 – 5.00 mile long runs daily, which led to many other benefits! From finding time to schedule longer runs in, I became more efficient with my time. I also noticed that I felt better when I ran on an empty stomach rather than after eating a breakfast. The benefits and outcomes from this challenge continued to accumulate throughout the 100 days that I ran. And then, on February 13, 2017, my 100th day had arrived… and I celebrated by going for a run. On that run, I also thought about how I was seeing all of these benefits from running 100 days, and wondered what would happen (and could I even do this?) if I ran for one whole year, every day, 2 miles minimum.
Rather than walking you through all the lessons I learned, I will jump ahead to the main point of this blog. I continued to run and grow my goal – could I reach 365 days? Yes. So then I set a new goal - could I run for 500 days? Yes! On and on this goal-growing went, until today, where I have now run for 1,500 days in a row! That’s fifteen-hundred days… in a row! Every day, no excuses, 2 miles minimum although most runs were longer than that.
Yes, I am proud of myself and yes, I will continue to run. Will I stop at 2,000, 10,000, or 22 years from now, I don’t know. For now, I am going to continue to grow my goal and reap the benefits of that initial challenge I posed for myself. While I am open to congratulatory celebrations on this accomplishment, I have a lesson that I hope you’ll take away from reading about my experience and apply to your own goal-getting. When I first started this challenge, 100 days was a stretch for me, but it was also something I knew I could achieve if I tried. If I had set the goal of 250 days or running 5 miles each day, I do not think I would have made it 100 days, let alone 1,500. Being realistic about where I was starting from and thinking about how far I could stretch myself was what led to the success of the first 100 days, then the first 365 days, then the first 500 days. We know that success, especially when coupled with effort, feels good, and that is what leads us to growing our goals. We stretch ourselves a little, experience success (and hopefully other positive outcomes), and so then set a new goal for ourselves. While being a goal-getter is who I am, I also value the process of setting or growing my goals to continue stretching myself.
As you consider goals for yourself, think about where you are and where you ideally want to be. Then, think about a goal you could set that would get you closer to your ideal self, without setting the bar so high it is unachievable. Consider setting milestone goals that will get you to your ideal self through the growing of your goals. In my ideal version of myself, I am a runner. I achieved that because I set out to run for 100 days in a row and then grew that goal. Now, I running is part of my daily schedule, and I consider myself a runner. Whether it is learning to cook, getting your finances in order, being a daily exerciser, or another goal, set something that is attainable and then watch your goal grow upon crushing it. What is the first step that will lead you to your ideal self? Set your goal there. Then go goal-get! You got this!
