Remember your "Why"

Last summer, I achieved a long time ambition of walking the 36 mile Sandstone Trail (in Cheshire) in a day.

I trained really hard before hand and on the day in question I set off with huge enthusiasm.

In fact, with this enthusiasm, I revised my goal from completing the trail in a day to completing it in 10 hours…

…and then the rain came. There is a reason that Cheshire is such a green county! It rained, and it rained…

…and then the blisters arrived.

I was wet, I was cold, I was hobbling along like one of Napoleon’s soldiers retreating from Moscow. My last remaining enthusiasm evaporated as the my watch told me that after 10 hours I was still 6 miles from the finish. What a failure!

And then I had a re-frame. My original goal, the very reason I was doing this walk, was to complete the walk in a day. There were still 5 hours of daylight left to complete 6 miles. Even if I had to crawl I could do it; I could achieve my real goal.

So often, we focus on the wrong goals in life. Make sure that you never lose sight of why you are really doing something.

By the way, I did complete the walk in a day!