Friday, February 25, 2011

Are Your Goals Failing You?

For the past 5 years, one of my grandiose new years' resolutions is to run a 5k in less than 30 minutes.  I have walked/run three 5k's in my life, and my time is nowhere near 30 minutes.  So it seemed like a great goal to really push myself.  But the reality is that in 5 years I have made zero progress on this goal!  ZERO!!!

So in November of this past year I decided it was time to get serious about this goal.  I challenged myself to do a really tough (non-cardio) workout for 10 days in a row.  I completed that challenge and was feeling strong and confident.  So with all this momentum behind me, I decided it was time to re-introduce the treadmill.  I set a new 10-day challenge to do a 10-minute (yes - you read that right -- only 10 minutes) workout on the treadmill!  By the third morning, I couldn't even talk myself into doing 5 minutes on the treadmill.  The first challenge was a harder challenge to complete, but I had no trouble motivating myself to do it!  That's when I realized that I wasn't failing my goal, my goal was failing me!!!  I just needed to set a completely different goal!

About that time a friend invited me to go to a Jazzercise class with her.  I had never been to a Jazzercise class before, and I was pretty much hooked from the first session!  So what was my 1 new years' resolution this year?  To do Jazzercise at least 3 times/week.  Do I have any trouble motivating myself to go to Jazzercise?  No!  I am having a great time; I love how I feel all day after doing the workout (one week I even did a few extra workouts!).  My favorite part of doing Jazzercise is walking past the treadmill in my Family Room with ZERO guilt!

Two months into the new year, I am still going strong on my new years' resolution!!!

Is there a new years' resolution (or any other type of goal) that has been failing you all these years?  Maybe it's time to set a better goal for you!

3 comments:

Crystal said...

That is awesome!!! Good for you Alisa.
Love your blog, so very inspiring!

Wendy said...

This is a great example of changing your goal to something fun and unique to you. I love it. Thanks so much. I have a goal to try a Zoomba class you have given me some motivation to get on it :)

Katie Vrajich said...

I am loving the process of eliminated guilt from my life! It is an absolute shame that most of the positive changes we are trying to make in our life end up creating a lot of guilt and then non-productive behaviors. Nice work Alisa!

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