Setting goals isn’t only good for us...

What might a gap-toothed second grader have to teach you or me about goal setting??That’s the question I had when my seven-year-old daughter walked into my bedroom and handed me back the triathlon medal I had just proudly earned, and gifted her.

Let me share a little about my past to illustrate the context of the story. My father was an athlete his entire life. He swam competitively, played water polo and later enjoyed tennis every morning before work, until his mid thirties. It was in the tennis locker room where he collapsed one morning. Doctors?diagnosed him with an inoperable brain tumor — he passed away a fast six months later. My life was turned upside down at the same age as my daughter was when she handed me back the medal.

Our family moved from a comfortable home in the suburbs to a tiny apartment in the bustling center of Athens. My mom did what she could to make it a home. I’ll never forget how she proudly displayed my dad’s medals and trophies on a bookshelf above the fridge. They were a constant reminder of his passion for sport and his discipline for living a healthy lifestyle. Those medals gave me the courage to make the long bus ride to a city swimming pool where I asked the coach if I could join the team. Sports connected me to my father and taught me so much; how to transform my desire for something I wanted into the discipline required to achieve it.

Fast forward a few decades to the story about my daughter. I had been giving medals earned in?triathlons and road races to my two kids as presents. But the day my daughter handed one back to me, she said, “Mommy, thank you but I don’t want it. I want to go out and win my own now.”

That was the day I knew that my father’s influence and dedication to goal-setting had not only benefited me, but her too. Who do you share your goals with? Who can you influence by going?after something scary, audacious, or slightly uncomfortable? Don’t underestimate the power of goal-setting for yourself and those around you, too!

Your January 1st resolutions may have faded or been abandoned. To help you make positive?progress with goals, I’m sharing a question in three parts which truly helps me set intentions?before starting every week. Here it goes:

What do I want to BE more?

What’s the first answer that comes to mind? You might say, I want to be more empathetic, more?focused, more intentional, or more action-oriented. Whichever intent you set out to achieve, it all breaks down to behavior. James Clear, author of the #1 New York Times best selling book, Atomic Habits, calls these identity-based habits. What we do is a mirror image of the type of person we?believe we are.

To be more of something else, we have to start with setting our intention to that identity. The goals we set to get there and the systems we follow will identify the process and, as a result, we will achieve our outcomes. Let me give you some examples. I often juggle many different projects at one time which results in me losing focus when I shouldn’t. If I set my intention to be more focused, I deliberately set my phone to ‘Do Not Disturb’ at the beginning of an important project. Another?positive habit for me is starting each week by choosing three top priorities. I also schedule?important conversations at a time in the day when my attention isn’t challenged by distractions.?My outcomes measurement goes back to those three start-of-the-week priorities; were they?accomplished? Have I made progress? Can I focus on the next priority?

Try this with one simple intention of what you want to be more of. Don’t overdo it, just begin with one but do commit to starting.

What do I want to DO more?

This intention focuses strictly on behavior. We all have habits that we have build on for most of our lives. Think of tooth brushing and bedtime rituals. To make a change, it’s easier to add a habit than break one and that comes down to what James Clear calls synaptic pruning: The powerful network of neurons that are built when we maintain a certain behavior.

Instead of trying to break a daily habit, think of nurturing a new one right next to it. For example,?if you’re trying to be consistent with taking your vitamins and you make a cup of coffee every morning, place your vitamins right next to it. If you’re a disciplined calendar user, plan your?workouts and block out that time at the beginning of the week. Or, schedule 5-minute stretching sessions at your chair three times during each day. You might also select one meeting per week where you can put on your earbuds and move.

Keep this habit-nurturing process simple and thoughtful. Which behaviors would be the easiest ones to double-up on?

Who do I want to SEE more?

In our hurried lives, this may be the most challenging intention to set. Staying connected with people who mean a lot to us can boost our energy and confidence. Consider it as fuel for your?engine. For some of us, it’s many people and for others it’s only a select few. Another personal?example: My 88-year-old mother lives far across the ocean in Athens, Greece. Being seven times zones?away makes connecting with her a daily challenge. Another barrier is the fact that she does much better with Skype than with standard phone calls. Between her naps, eating schedule and the?proficiency of her live-in caretaker with technology, I start each day with calculating the best time to connect. Thanks to screen-sharing on her computer tablet, we’re able to sing childhood songs, watch Indian Idol (one of her favorites) and do chair yoga together even though I live on a?different continent.

Who is on your list of ‘see more’ and what can you do to make that happen?

As James Clear says, “Start slow if you have to, start small if you have to, start privately if you have to. Just start.” Look out for a special LinkedIn Live coming in May (National Employee Health and Fitness month) as we will move and sweat with the theme of Be More | Do More | See More.

A special shout-out to my friend and dear colleague, Jay Blahnik. The three questions above were the theme for a cycling class I took with him years ago and it has stuck with me. Each New Year’s Eve, I teach a similar class at Ethos Fitness, asking riders to write down their intentions on paper which we then mail to them a month later.

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