There is a great deal of carryover from what is done in the gym to how you live your life. I’m not talking about physical strength but lessons learned from dealing with adversity, managing your ego, mental preparation, and planning (along with many more). But the ones I choose to highlight now are both short and long term goal setting. I’ve created my #GrandGoals plan in order to both deadlift and squat 1000lbs (and be the lightest man to do so), and I’m currently working on the first portion of that goal now. In the following video I discuss a little bit about how #GrandGoals relate to both business and life, as well as challenge you with the question, “What are your Grand Goals?”
Perhaps surprisingly, I’ll admit that #GrandGoals itself is both superfluous and unimportant. Lifting an arbitrary weight (or setting some record) has very little impact on what is truly important in my life. Nor does it have a direct relationship to any of the important life goals that I have. Yes that’s correct, it something that I’m focusing on so hard and putting so much effort in really means jack shit in regards to importance in my life.
Just because the end goal has no significant bearing on my life doesn’t mean its entirely unimportant however. This will sound about as cliché as it gets, but it’s the process or the journey that make it important. This is when your time in the gym becomes practice for life. It is the process of developing some gnarly goals and then putting your toes in the dirt and seeing what you’re really made of, testing yourself that is. Testing your discipline, your follow through, project planning (training cycle, testing, and adjustments), and commitment to name a few.
It may be cliché as hell but it is the journey towards achieving your goals that matters the most. This process is how you fill in the pages to the book of your life. If you never test yourself or put yourself out there you will likely not be prepared when the big things or big opportunities in life hit you. And when I say ‘put yourself out there’ I don’t mean publicly, but internally accepting and committing to the goal. In fact its best to keep ‘big gnarly goals’ locked up to just your very close inner circle until you have proven yourself and they are close to becoming a reality. Don’t be going around saying your going to be Ms.O 2027 and making yourself look like a fool. Share them only with the people that will get behind you and support you. For more on this read “The Power of Thought” by Rudy Kadlub, my business partner, training partner, and long-time friend.
Even these minor goals should still always indirectly align with what you want to gain out of life. This is a big miss in life and Chad Aiches and I spoke to this recently in a video interview we did. The discussion how some athletes begin chasing numbers so much they begin to drop other things from their life that had great meaning to them. Or, they bring things into their life that don’t align with what they truly want from life.
But perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself here, as we have not talked about life goals yet. If you are working on them, and you should always be working on them – a great first goal to have is to think about life as a journey again. Stop living a disconnected and irrational sequence of events, both good and bad, that sum up to your life. You need to understand HOW you want to live and then you can develop goals that align with that. Here is a set of questions that can help you with this process. These are questions that I’ve answered for myself long ago, and to this day come back to them to ensure I stay aligned with the answers I’ve given myself.
What excites you in life?
What type of people do you want around yourself?
What do you want to learn?
What challenges do you want to overcome?
What unique value can you add to the world or contribution you would like to make?
How do you want to spend your time?
Five Directives For Creating A Longer, Healthier Life At 50+
The Power Of Thought – Part 1