A Goal Isn’t Enough! I need a Plan.

I went ahead and set some goals for myself this month, but I kind of did it wrong.  Luckily, it’s not too late to fix that!

I don’t know about you (obviously) but I know I’m a sucker for marking things off a list.  I’ll even make a list that includes stuff I already did, just so I can cross them off.  Don’t judge. But with a monthly goal it takes sooo long to get there.  How do I know if I’m doing what I need to get there? Where IS the goal?

I really only set one serious goal (though I DO want to do all of them), to be running 3 miles every time I go running.  It’s not that much but since I started off the month lucky to get to 2 miles most times it’s a good one for me.

So I set the goal on the 3rd and then only ran once the next week.   Par for the course in the life of me.  But wait! I am perfectly capable of accomplishing SOMETHING. right? So I thought about it. If I run 3 miles the last day of the month that hardly counts.

So then what does count?  I want to run 3 miles everyday the last week of the month. OK, now I know my definition of meeting my running goal. Step 1!  Well, lets call it step two since step one was deciding on the goal.  Look, I crossed something else off the list!

In that case, on to step three. How am I going to get there? I can’t just sit back drinking wine every night then jump up the last week of the month and go. Since I’d already lost some time to my typical procrastination I was kind of behind, but in this case it worked.  I ran 2.25 miles each run for the last week. 2.5 miles this Thursday and Saturday, 2.75 miles all next week, and that leads me to 3 miles the last week. Easy peasy, right? Right.

My last goal was to set a new running goal at the end of the month.  This time when I set my goals I’m going to use the 4 step plan.

1) Set a goal

2) Define what attaining the goal will look like

3) Make a plan on how to get there so I can tell at any point of time if I am on the right path

4) Get that goal and move on to the next one.

When you set goals do you make a plan to get there or do you just go out there and do it?