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Moving the Target



Do you ever negotiate your goals? Here’s what I mean: do you ever start out with a plan to accomplish one thing and then move the target in as you progress? You make the rules a little easier on yourself once you get started? Maybe you set out to lose ten pounds, get stuck at eight pounds, and then decide you’ve worked hard enough until this point. Plus there have been some setbacks out of your control, like the jerk who opened a Krispy Kreme right in your neighborhood, so you settle on the fact eight pounds is “close enough.” It could be you’re trying to save $20K to replace a vehicle in cash, get to $15K and then choose to finance the rest because that’s still more than you’ve ever put down on a car before. Perhaps it’s getting up an hour early and getting started sooner at work so you can get off earlier to spend more time with the family. By Thursday, however, you really feel like getting some extra sleep. Besides, the kids have probably had enough of you anyway.

I am a very goal-oriented person and I motivate myself with “carrots and sticks” to stay on course to meet those goals. However, I often struggle at the gym, wanting to cut back the work I intended to do. I tell myself, “You planned to do 30 minutes of intervals, but your intervals are really intense and you could probably stop at 25 minutes and no one would know the difference.” Then I usually add a little justification, “Hey look, you are working out harder than those other people (like the guys reading the paper on the recumbent bike), you DESERVE a break.” Even today, I tried to give myself an out on writing this post. I told myself, “You are really busy with a short work week and Thanksgiving coming up. It’s hard to cram five days of work into three.” Then I reminded myself that later tonight I would be working on a couple of upcoming presentations, thus satisfying my “creative” work for the day. I really wanted to move the target.

It may seem like a minor thing, but negotiating goals can become habitual, especially when no one else is holding us accountable. Like the British Prime Ministers in the late 1930s as they tried to appease Hitler and conceded more and more of Europe, we can create a pattern of giving in. We get accustomed to giving up ground, precious real estate within our own will and determination. Again, like Europe eventually found out in the 1940s, the steady slide can get to a point where it’s almost irreparable.

Don’t give Hitler any ground. Refuse to negotiate goals with yourself. Resist the urge to move the target in. It’s better to miss the target than to move it until it’s easier to hit. Even if you fail to achieve your goal, you still didn’t compromise and there’s victory in that. Win the small battles before the war breaks out.

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