This post was originally posted on March 7th but went missing. I found it! So this is a re-post…enjoy!

“I will run every morning before breakfast”
“I will study French every day”
“I will lose five kilos by March”

I set goals for myself all the time. Sometimes they are wild crazy goals. Sometimes they are quite simple. They do have one thing in common though and that is that I set them and then fail to see them through to their complete extent. Take this for example:

When I was younger I used to do race walking. It’s that weird sport which looks like a mix between running and wiggling your bum a lot. When I was fourteen I set the goal of winning a state medal that year. I didn’t care what medal I just wanted to win one. That year I trained harder than I ever had before. My times improved dramatically over the season. I even tracked the rankings throughout the year and saw that I had the second fastest time and the most consistent time out of my age group. I was going to go to the state championships and win my medal!

So what happened?

I went to the zone qualifier and nearly got disqualified after being given two cautions for contact and a warning for knees. I never got cautions. I was one of the cleanest walkers in the competition. This really shook me up and I finished with a time that was nearly double my personal best.

I then went to the states so worried that I would be disqualified that I performed terribly. On my final lap all I remember is crying because I knew I had stuffed it so badly. In the end I finished fourth.

So what is the point of this story? The point is I have a habit when it comes to goal setting, a habit stretching back to childhood. The example above is just one of many that I can think of off the top of my head. My habit is that when I want something so badly that I set a goal to achieve it I then go about self sabotaging myself so that it is near impossible for me to achieve it.

I want to stop this. One step is to break the goal up into smaller more achievable steps. Another is to do some preparation before setting the goal so I know what I am getting myself in for and are prepared for the hard work to come. The most important thing though is to break the habit.