Could a Fitness Goal Help Your Career?
Sometimes we need goals that have nothing to do with our careers, financial future or performance. From time to time I find myself focusing on seemingly inconsequential, somewhat irrelevant goals that from a glance can be seen as a distraction from some of the critical parts of life. For me these usually are fitness goals: run a marathon, have my personal record on a race, do a certain number of pull ups or drop to single digits in my body fat (if you know how much I love to eat, you’d know that’s almost an impossibility). So why bother with them, you might ask. Here’s what these goals do for me.
Forced disciplined. I’m a disciplined person by nature, but when I’m focusing on a fitness goal I get in a whole new level of commitment. Interestingly, that discipline spills over other areas of my life including professional and relational.
Broken routine. One day you wake up and life is a series of predictable activities. I often find myself going through my daily routine without much thought or focus. The interjection of a new goal, by the nature of it, disrupts the status quo and forces me to do things differently, and more importantly, intentionally.
Heightened performance. I found out that each time I met my fitness goals there was a major psychological boost in my professional performance as well. I cannot quantify it, but a shift happened in my thinking that simply says “if you can accomplish this, you can take the next challenge in your professional career.” These fitness goals somehow transferred a sense of confidence to other areas of my life, embolden me to get past performance and thinking plateaus.
For me, reaching these goals give e more than just a sense of accomplishment, a plaque and a t-shirt. These are personal morale and productivity boosters that help me work through the moments I might feel stuck or not sure of my own abilities to go to the next level.
