Goals - Lessons From Triathlon
We’re going to talk about goals today. And in the process, I’ll share my latest race and then land in leadership.
Goals.
Naming them. Pursuing them. Missing them. Meeting them. Exceeding them. Learning from them.
Goals matter. They give us clarity, purpose, confidence, achievement, and personal growth.
AND we’re not always terribly great with goals - personally and professionally.
Today I share my recent experience with goals and then some thoughts to challenge and support your own pursuit of goals as a human, a leader, and someone who wants to have an impact.
This past weekend I crushed Ironman 70.3 Boulder and I’m pretty damn proud. And if you happened to read about my Hawaii race 8 weeks ago, Boulder was completely different.
What was different this round?
Small, strategic goals + meaningful accountability.
I hired a coach who built a custom training plan for me. Each day I knew what I had to do. Each day was a small step towards my larger goal.
Each completed training day would get uploaded into an app and I knew my coach would see it. I also knew we’d talk about it. This race mattered to me and I knew someone was watching my metrics and my efforts.
In addition to that, for the first time, I wrote a race plan.
These were the goals on my race plan:
Swim: Focus on normalizing heart rate to settle in, and target 55-60 minutes.
Bike: Average 18.5 mph or greater on the bike, keep my heart rate between 130-145.
Run: Slow and steady out of transition to let my calf warm up. First 5 miles: 10:20-10:30 pace. Next 5 miles: 10:00-10:20 pace. Final 5K – whatever is left (target 9:30-9:45 pace)
I had these goals written down and I shared and reviewed the goals with my coach.
You’re 42% more likely to achieve a goal you’ve written down. You’re 65% more likely to achieve a goal you’ve shared with another (accountability).
So how’d the day go?
I got out of the water at 49:34, more than 5 minutes faster than the upper end of my goal. I was f-ing stoked!
I got a fast start out onto the bike course. I strategically hammered and exceeded my goal with a final average speed of 18.9 mph over 56 miles.
The run was a gamble. Saturday happened to feature the worst air quality for a major city in the entire world, literally. But I felt strong, I kept steady and I pivoted my goal to factor in the conditions.
With only 3 miles left in the race, I allowed myself to look at my total time. I was on pace to set a new personal record for the 70.3 distance.
So this race, this surpassing of goals and expectations, was not an accident.
There was vision, preparation, goal setting, and accountability.
Now to connect the dots...these are all also elements that enable the best leadership and professional achievement.
Ironman 70.3 Boulder was my personal big finish line. What’s a big “finish line” you have your eye on?
Gunning for the top sales team of Q3? Pursuing a promotion to Senior Director or VP? Starting your own business?
Now, what are the smaller finish lines that are along the journey?
Who do you need to be coaching to help ignite performance to land top sales team honors? What are the skills and behaviors to be refined to boost your Senior Director level success? What are you offering with your new business?
What are the actionable goals you will write for yourself?
Role play objections 3x per day with newly promoted managers.
Read 1 leadership book per month between now and end of the year.
Solicit peer feedback 1x per month to get ahead of development opportunities.
Engage a leadership coach by September 30th to focus on reducing imposter syndrome.
Email 5 people per day to personally announce your new business offering.
What’s important to you about this goal? Both the bigger “finish line” and the smaller pieces along the way? What’s your “why”?
Yes, these are all professional examples, and this holds true personally. What are you wanting? What are you longing for? What would help you be your best? Those are the goals you need to name and then pursue.
And now that you’ve written them down, who will you share them with?
Dream it. Believe it. Achieve it.
