Keith JonesAugust 19, 2016

The bigger your goals are, the more satisfying and rewarding they are. To experience the payoff that big goals can offer, you have to be willing to invest in yourself and do the work required to reach the finish line. And if you want to have fun along the way, it helps to frame all the hard work as part of a journey. Journeys offer opportunities to learn, grow and have fun during the pursuit of success. However, when a person only focuses on the goal, falling short of it can be emotionally devastating. So I encourage you to view each small victory or temporary setback as part of the process that makes you a little  better than you were the day before. Over the course of a year, you will become a lot better than you were before.

I am moved by the stories of people who set awesome goals for themselves and give everything to achieving them. What makes these individuals even more inspiring is when they sum up all the hours of hard work as a worthwhile journey, win or lose. We live in a day and age where most of the headlines and social media posts can lead one to believe success happens overnight. This is hardly the case. If you look a bit deeper, you will find that those seemingly overnight successes were years or decades in the making. Look no further than this year’s Olympics. Every athlete there, those who medal and those who don’t, exercised incredible commitment and discipline over a long period of time to just get there. Day after day in the pool, lap after lap on the track and fall after fall during a tumbling routine for years and years; all the while with no guarantee they would make their country’s Olympic team. They were guided by their goal and the idea that “I am going to give my very best to every practice every day for a shot to make it.” To have that standard for yourself is so motivating to me.

You can tell the athletes who understand all the sacrifice and investment over the years is part of an overarching journey. Just listen to their post race interviews. In victory, they say, “All the hard work made this possible. I am so thankful to all the people from the beginning to this moment who helped me get here.” And in defeat, they say, “While I didn’t finish like I had hoped, I am so thankful to be here to represent my country.” Or they say, “Although I hoped I would’ve placed better, I gave it everything I had and that’s all I could ask for. I am happy with my effort because I gave it my best.” There is something comforting that comes with knowing you did everything you could to reach your goal.

These days I am channeling the mindset and commitment of world class athletes and great leaders into my daily life. I have set big goals for our community. Each day I invest in learning something new, growing from situations and failures and working as hard as I can to get us a bit closer to the goal. Taking a page out of the book from the happiest people I know, I am viewing the hard work I do each day not as a sacrifice but as an investment. And I am not singularly focused on the outcome. Instead, I am falling in love with creating habits and daily routines that produce small victories in the short term and huge ones over time. Ever since I’ve adopted this viewpoint every day has been satisfying and rewarding.

What goals have you set for yourself and your life? Are your goals so big that they scare you? And do your goals require you to grow into the person that can achieve them? I hope so. If not, think bigger because you’re worthy of only the biggest goals and best journeys life has to offer. Ready. Set. Go For It!

Stronger Mindset!

Keith