Everyone has the goal of success. Whether it is to be successful in a job, or a sport, or anything that is truly important to you, we all want to be successful. The trick to this though, is that becoming successful in these areas is not merely dreaming about the life you hope to live. To be realistic, we all need to set reasonable, smaller goals that act as stepping stones towards your dream.
I’m aware that this sounds cliche, and that every person has most likely had this message drilled into them countless times, but I want to make it a little more fun and challenging for you.
From my knowledge, and my countless lectures from parents and elders, “I need to set goals that I know I can reach and use them to become better over all.” And it’s true! This type of goal setting is a great skill to have and a lot of the time you should put this into practice, yet, because you are not on a blog about a Sunday bike trip around the block, we want to push our readers more.
In stead of setting goals that you think you will be able to achieve with hard work, get out of your comfort zone and set a goal for yourself that you don’t think you can achieve. I know, I know, this sounds really weird and it is, which is why the first step to this type of a goal is to change your mind setting. If you think that there is no way you can bike a certain number if miles in a day, for example: 100 miles, you need to start telling yourself that you can. This can be extremely difficult seeing as you came up with the goal based on the fact that you didn’t think you could do it, but hear me out. Post 100 miles in your room, your work, the backgrounds to electronics, everywhere. I want you to get in the mind set that if you truly want to accomplish this act, there is nothing stopping you but your own doubt.
The second issue to this is other people. If you started off not thinking you could do something, I’m going to guess that your peers will think the same way. Do not take their doubt negatively! If they doubt what you can achieve, prove then wrong, not to shove it in their face, but to prove it to yourself. If you do end up achieving your goal, be modest, to a certain extent, and just enjoy the feeling you have inside.
One example of this type of a goal is the blog that you are just reading now. I came up with this idea in a coffee shop. I thought, “I wanna get out of here… On a bike.” Then I google mapped some stuff and my goal was set. I have never accomplished anything quite this extravagant relating to exercise and I started off thinking that it would not be possible, so, naturally, I wanted to do it even more. I started telling my friends at school and my family and got some support, but the majority of people thought I was crazy and said I was going to get myself killed. After knocking on wood a few hundred times, my excitement and drive to accomplish this quest grew even greater. I found a great partner, Zach, who is just excited as I am, we discovered a cause relating to the fitness of teenagers, and for the most part, we became ready. Zach and I are training, mentally and physically, and we are just plain ready to go.
To sum up, we think it is a good idea that everyone trying to be successful will set smaller goals for themselves. Yet with these smaller goals, do not let them become too small! Push yourself, push your ego, push your society-influenced vision of yourself being less accomplishable than you really are! Do not take criticism negatively, but optimistically, and the very last point I want to make is that accomplishment lies within the effort given on the path to the prize, not just the gift that awaits. Yet, if you can, the prize is still pretty awesome.
Enjoy the rest if your weekend, stay healthy, smile, and set a goal or two.
Bike Potatoes 