goal-setting – Page 5 – theCauseCoach

Let Me Be Me!

March 24, 2017May 17, 2018thecausecoach

Two weeks ago (not sure what happened to last week), we talked about goal setting and using “SMART” criteria to establish goals. I left you with the idea that reaching your goals takes planning for the process of doing, training, conditioning or learning that will make achieving the big goals easier.

I just started volunteering as a coach for a running program for elementary and middle school boys called Let Me Run. It’s like Girls on the Run just for boys. The mission of the program is to “inspire boys through the power of running to be courageous enough to be themselves, to build healthy relationships, and to live an active life style.” The goal is to complete a 5k on May 13th. The program meets two times a week and there is a theme for each session that includes a discussion of “words to live by”that helps illustrate the theme. This week was about goal setting and the words to live by were “a goal without a plan is just a dream.” The boys, ranging in age from 10-12, were quick to point out that achieving a goal requires action, and it was difficult to act without a plan.

After we completed our running for the day – 25 minutes of running with walking breaks this week – we went inside for our lesson on goal setting. Here we used the mnemonic acronym R.A.C.E instead of S.M.A.R.T (maybe because it fits better with a running program, or maybe because it’s simpler); Realistic, Action, Commitment, Evaluation. I like that it focuses on goal setting as a process that requires action. The boys were all asked to come up with two personal goals, a running goal and something else, and to make a specific plan of action for each.

An action plan for running goals is easy. For the boys, there is this program that will take them week by week through training and conditioning that is designed to have them ready to complete the 5k. For you, there are a whole host of published training plans that will meet your needs depending on your fitness level and race goal. I wrote about planning for running goals back in January. As I discussed earlier this month, tackling other personal goals will take some more effort in planning, but the model used to develop training plans is a good place to start. Break the big goal down into little goals, and then determine the tasks that need to be completed to achieve the smaller goals. It’s simple really. And it’s a process that we are all aware of. So why can we still fail to achieve our goals when we so diligently create an action plan. Perhaps because we are completely focused on the action – on doing – that we over look the “being.” In other words in order to “do” something, we need to “be” something. We need to be in the moment. This is what “co-active” coaching is all about. In order to live the best life we want to live, we not only have to be focused on doing, but on being.

Creating an action plan is only part of the process toward reaching a goal. As a coach I assist clients in determining who they want to be. Who are you when you are at your best? What have you been when you have achieved your goals in the past? Courageous? Thoughtful? Organized? Disciplined? Engaged? Efficient? Humble?

Once you have chosen a goal that resonates with you, then make a list of what you need to do to achieve that goal. And prioritize. What should be done first? What comes next? But before you act ask yourself what and who do I need to be in order to act? Curious? Enthusiastic? Caring? Generous? Empathetic? Trustworthy? Present?

At the conclusion of our Let Me Run workout sessions we huddle up and shout the mantra “Let me be me! Let me reach out! Let me run!” Let me be me. Yes, be yourself. Be who you are at your absolute best. That’s how you work your plan. That’s how you reach your goals.

Saddle River County Park. Saddle Brook, New Jersey. March 2017.

Living (and running) SMART

March 9, 2017May 17, 2017thecausecoach

Somewhere in your career, or maybe in school, you learned about SMART goals. SMART goals are the first step in creating an actionable plan to achieve success. Creating SMART goals works in life and running as well as business.

It is generally accepted that the SMART acronym was first written down in November 1981 in Spokane, Washington. George T. Doran, a consultant and former Director of Corporate Planning for Washington Water Power Company published a paper titled “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. Way to Write Management’s Goals and Objectives”. – A Brief History of SMART Goals

The original definition of the acronym S.M.A.R.T. was Specific, Measurable, Assignable/Agreed-to, Realistic, and Time-related/Time-bound. There have been variations on this to make it more usable outside business management. Those include: Strategic, Significant, Stretching; Motivating, Meaningful; Attainable, Action-oriented, Ambitious, Aligned, Achievable; Resourced, Reasonable, Relevant, Results-based; Time-based, Time-limited, Timely, Time-sensitive, Tangible, Trackable. I’m sure there are more you can add to the list.

Whether I am working with runners or life coaching clients, the definition that I believe works best, which is pretty close to Doran’s definition, is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-sensitive. So let’s look at goal setting within that frame work. Clients come into coaching with a goal in mind. Usually it’s a very broad goal. “I want to run a marathon” or “I want a more fulfilling job” or my favorite, “I want to be happier.” Yikes. It’s understandable that most people don’t know how to move forward from there. Everyone one of us is creative and resourceful however and by contemplating the answers to some questions, we can begin to shape some goals with which we can realistically begin to shape future we desire for ourselves.

Specific…What is it that you really want to achieve? If the answer is that you want to be happy, I would follow that up with what does happiness look like? What does a better job look like? Answering those questions will help steer the way to specificity. Vague goals don’t work because they are hard to plan around. If your goal isn’t specific enough you won’t know what to do today to work towards it. So a specific goal maybe something more like, “volunteer with an organization that has meaning to me” or “go back to school to finish my degree” or “build the skills necessary to move to the fundraising department in my organization.” Finishing a marathon is a specific goal, and therefore has a plan attached to it. For many who has never run before, though, or maybe have achieved a 5k so far, its not a good place to start. It may not meet some of the other criteria, and be a better longer range goal. When I finished my coaching core classes and began the certification process over 6 months ago, my obvious (specific) goal was to become a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach, and in working with my mentor-coach, my desire was to deepen my understanding of coaching, which without the next piece of criteria isn’t that specific.

Measurable…What does success look like and what will determine that you’ve reached it? Crossing a finish line is obviously measurable. How do you measure happiness or fulfillment? Or a “deepened understanding?” When I work with clients, we discuss big goals, those major changes that they want and usually the reason they came to coaching. Those can be 6 month or 1 year or 5 year goals. In working with my mentor-coach, I was focused on the next 6-12 months and ultimately achieving certification as a professional coach. The measurement that I laid out with her however gave me a better sense of measurable – and specific – benchmarks along the way. I will know I’ve succeeded when I am familiar with the process of coaching and feel more confident that I want to pursue this as a career; I feel comfortable with the material I’ve learned and it feels like the skills come naturally to me; I can write comfortably about coaching concepts in my blog without consulting “the book.” Check.

Achievable…What can you actually, realistically, do? Here we need to take into account other commitments we’ve made that make realistic demands on our time. We need to consider our real physical limitations and make adjustments accordingly. I use the words realistic and real here because I want to stress that achieving the most meaningful goals will be challenging at times and require us to stretch. There wouldn’t be the same sense of accomplishment in achieving a goal that didn’t require some sacrifice or ask us to move beyond our comfort zone. Going back to school will take time. Training for a marathon is hard. That doesn’t mean that you aren’t physically capable of doing it. There will always be voices inside our heads telling us we are too young, too old, too fat, too slow, too weak, too poor, etc. trying to talk us out of our goals. That’s different and we’ll talk about those saboteurs and gremlins another time. What I’m focusing on now is setting achievable goals that don’t set us up for failure. The goal should be to walk, then run, then register for the marathon. And at your first job out of college, while it’s good to be focused on the CEO job, it’s good to be open to the progression that will get you there.

Relevant…What does this goal have to do with everything else going on in your your life? What does it do to other goals and desires you have? What will it do to support or complement them? What change will achieving this goal accomplish in your life? If your goal is to run a marathon, it’s important to understand that training is time-consuming and requires a lot of energy (and time to nap after long runs on a Sunday afternoon). A goal to go back to school however supports a goal of getting a better job. Buying a house supports a goal of wanting to start a family. When I first started pursuing my interest in coaching, it was to complement my goal of transitioning my business into something that would give me more flexibility and be something I could do beyond retirement age. Getting certified as a coach was relevant to my life plan.

Time-sensitive..A goal isn’t really a goal without a due date to which you can hold yourself accountable. So what’s the due date? Target dates should have a little bit of wiggle room so, again, you’re not setting yourself up for failure. And they should be realistic, and have some progressive bench-marks built-in. For example: “I will run a 5k in 10 weeks, a 10k in 3 months, a half-marathon in 6 months and a marathon before next summer.”

So decide on your SMART goals and write them down. Have long-range, mid-range, and short-term goals that complement and support one another and the life you want to create for yourself. Then begin to put a plan in motion that will help you reach your goals. Goal setting is simply creating the end zone. How you get there takes planning; a process of doing, training, conditioning or learning that when executed will make the goal that much more achievable. More on planning another day…

The New Balance Track & Field Center at The Armory. Washington Heights, New York City. March 2017.

Where heart meets sole

February 11, 2017January 9, 2021thecausecoach

The Surf City Half Marathon last Sunday was better than expected. The last time I ran with my boyfriend it was a six mile training run on the first Saturday in December near his home in Illinois. About two miles in, I stopped laid down on the grass and didn’t want to get up. I did. But I felt it was going to be a long road back. Surf City was only eight weeks away.

When I started running over twenty years ago I liked the solitude of it. It was an escape of sorts. “Me” time. Find a training partner is advice often given to new runners because the idea is that if you know someone is waiting for you, you’ll get up and out, not wishing to let them down. Or maybe, as my mother would say, “misery loves company.” Regardless, it’s not bad advice. The camaraderie among fellow runners certainly provides motivation. I always recommend that new runners join a beginner group training program* because of the motivation created by being part of something bigger than yourself. When I started out, however, I was a loner and that suited me just fine. Then.

Everyone starts running for a variety of reasons, the least of which is that any of us actually liked to run. I have found that we are mostly running away from something or to something. A lot of runners I know are former addicts. Many are avoiding difficult relationships. Almost everyone starts running as a means to cope with some sort of stress or anxiety. When I started running I needed to be alone. Some people do better as part of a group. Others don’t. It probably depends a lot on your personality plus the reason you’re running.

I joined a running club about 15 years ago. I didn’t start participating in any of the group runs until much later however. One winter they started a Saturday morning group run of various distances and paces. Knowing that there were people I could run with got me up and out almost every weekend during those cold months. I began to see the advantages of training partners and running friends. I remember being glad that my mother died on a Tuesday morning because that was the day of my club’s summer evening workout and I needed to be with supportive people and to run off the hurt. I have found races to be more fun when there are others that care about my results almost as much as I do. Running, I found, could be a team sport and those relationships have become some of my most rewarding and most cherished.

No surprise then that I would now find myself in a romantic relationship with a fellow runner. As runners, he and I understand one another on a level that those who came before could not. Running together, we are completely in sync. Running, even when living and training 800 miles apart, is a bond that motivates us everyday. Although there are a million and one reasons why I’m connected so fully to this wonderful man, he has become the motivation for why running continues to figure so prominently in my life everyday. Because there is someone I want to be accountable to about my training, because I want to be able to run with him, because I know he’ll be there at my side for those long runs (literally and figuratively), and lastly because he signs us up for races months in advance, so I have no choice but to keep training. 🙂

There are runners who have amazingly successful partnerships with people who don’t run. So I’m not saying that can’t work. There’s a magnitude of reasons we connect with the people we do; successful relationships are not one-dimensional. That said, it’s important for us to surround ourselves with people that motivate us to be better. If you want to be a runner, or a better runner, or a more motivated runner, spend some time regularly with other runners.

“Who you hang out with determines what you dream about and what you collide with. And the collisions and the dream lead to your changes. And the changes are what you become. Change the outcome by changing your circle.” – Seth Godin

After that weekend in early December when I crashed and burned on a six mile run, I got motivated. He was so understanding. He acknowledged my difficultly and reminded me of all that I had been able to achieve in the past and encouraged me to keep going. I did the training I needed to do to get to the start – and the finish – of the Surf City Half Marathon. I ran strong. Every step in sync with him. And the road back wasn’t as long as I thought it was going to be because I had never really abandoned my training completely. With another runner figuring so prominetly in my life, I just couldn’t. At the very least, I’d still have to talk about running.

Huntington Beach, California. Home of the Surf City Marathon and Half. February 2017.

Looking for something for your Runner Valentine? I found a really cute, and super comfortable running top at the Surf City Expo from AEVOK APPAREL. To get yours and see what they have for men, go to AEVOK.COM. (and no they didn’t pay me or even give me a discount for this endorsement. Just some really nice people making some really cool stuff).

*If you are in the Bergen County, New Jersey area, my running club has an awesome Beginner to Finisher 5k program that begins on March 18. Click here for more information.

The Plan

January 31, 2017January 10, 2021thecausecoach

So, have you been working out? Or are you still struggling to get into a good routine? I will confess, I’ve been struggling. Not with sticking to my workout schedule; but rather sticking to my blogging schedule! Thankfully I started a workout routine just after Thanksgiving and it’s now a habit. It’s that with everything going on in our country and the world, I’ve found it a little difficult to sit down this week to write about training. It seems at times, trivial. I remembered however, that we need to workout to keep our stress levels manageable – regardless of where you stand on the issues.

So I don’t want to let you down if you’ve come here looking for motivation. If you haven’t gotten going yet, not to worry. Do not throw in the towel on your goals because you didn’t exactly stick to your New Year’s resolution. That’s what I hate about New Year’s Resolutions. Too often people feel it’s all or nothing. Every day is a new day, so if you haven’t started yet, you still can. If you have, good for you!

The best way to get into a routine, is to have a plan. Let’s start there. Creating and/or following a training plan provides easy to follow step by step instructions. You wouldn’t prepare a holiday meal without a menu and recipes, would you? You wouldn’t manage a big project at work without planning it out first either. You’d probably create a timeline, too. That’s exactly where to start with a training plan.

If you are new to running or getting back after a long break or injury, start slowly. For me, this is a building year. My ultimate goal is a Boston Marathon Qualifying Time at the NJ Marathon next year. This year, I have a spring goal race and a fall goal race. Both Half Marathons. So right now, I’m only looking at the spring goal. Your goal should be determined by your previous experience, current training/fitness level, how much time you have to dedicate to training, and how much time you have until the goal race. Will you have enough time for the appropriate amount of training? And a training rule worth sticking to is the 10% rule. Meaning that each week, you shouldn’t add more than 10% on to what you did last week.

Designing my training plan, I work backwards. Goal race is April 30. The 16-week training plan began the 2nd week in January. It involves a weekly long run designed to gradually build my endurance for the distance of my goal race, a speed session, and a “threshold” run or two (that’s a run of about 85-90% of max heart rate or “comfortably hard”), and a recovery (slower) run. I typically only run 4 days a week. And there is value in recovery and rest days! I also cross train – for me, swimming. I also try to working in a few sessions of Pilates, yoga and/or strength training each week. Maintaining core strength and flexibility is a key factor in preventing injuries, as is doing a solid warm-up at the beginning of each work-out and a stretching routine afterwards.

I’ve been running for over 20 years. I am a certified running coach and I’ve worked with a coach. I know what, in theory, works. I also know through years of trial and error what specifically works for me. So where do you, as a beginner or novice, go for a training plan for your specific goal race? If you are a beginner, you should look no further than a local “beginner to finisher” or “couch to 5k” program. First, as a beginner, I strongly urge you not to tackle a first race longer than a 5k. A beginner group will give you the organized plan, the benefits of having a coach, and the company of others. To find a group near you, Google “beginner run group” to see what comes up or leave a comment below and I will try to help. If you’re a walker who is new to running, you might find some helpful tips in this article, published recently on Sparkpeople.com, in which I am quoted: 9 Real-World Tips from Walkers Who Became Runners.

If you’ve already run your first race and are ready to work on increasing speed or distance, there are a ton of books out there, as well an abundance of online resources, including apps. Hal Higdon is probably one of the most popular and well respected (www.halhigdon.com). His training plans offer something for every distance and every level. Runner’s World (runnersworld.com) besides offering lots of useful information in their monthly publication also has training plans designed to meet a specific goal like weight loss, maintaining fitness, tackling a new distance or faster time. Lastly, (but of course not at all least of the options), hire a coach. A coach provides the accountability, and real-time feedback that you can’t get from a book, website or app. A coach can also make adjustments throughout your training based on how you are responding. To find a certified coach visit Road Runners Club of America or USA Track & Field websites.

Regardless of what plan you use, sticking to it builds discipline and focus…and certainly a sense of accomplishment, which will boost self-esteem. Exercising clears the head and relieves stress. I would add that getting outside for a run (rather than the treadmill all winter), if you can, is best. I have found lately that running on the treadmill at the gym in front of the morning news might elevate my heart rate a little too much.

Saddle River County Park, Dunkerhook Area, Paramus, New Jersey. January 2017.

The Power of Endorphins

January 13, 2017January 10, 2021thecausecoach

Back in late November I was feeling really down. I just chalked it up to the time of year. It was just starting to get cold, the days were getting progressively shorter, and I was gearing up for another holiday season without a number of the people who had been around my table for so many holiday feasts of the past. So it was understandable. I was having trouble focusing at work, was neglecting my house, and didn’t feel like doing much of anything. Depression. And I felt stuck.

Yup. I’m a coach. I help clients get un-stuck all the time and was having trouble helping myself. I’m about as good at being my own coach as I am at French braiding my own hair. Thankfully I too have a coach. The first thing we talked about is how I felt over-whelmed by everything. That’s never a good place to be because collectively everything is more than you can handle. It needs to be broken down into manageable pieces. My coach asked me, what’s one thing that you want to take aim at?

She asked me about my running. I said I was running sporadically and that wasn’t it because trying to fit more runs into my schedule right then would just cause me more stress. I didn’t have the time I told her. So we agreed I’d aim at getting something accomplished at work. That would make me feel better, right? Well yeah, it did. Sort of. But a funny thing happened. The Monday after Thanksgiving, I signed up for a 6am Pilates class. I went to bed a little earlier the night before and resisted the urge to go back to bed when the alarm went off and made it to the class. The next day it wasn’t as hard to get up and I went to the gym to run on the treadmill. Getting up to run in the cold and dark was asking too much, but the treadmill was an okay compromise. Just a slow 3 miles. I ran 4 days that week and took two Pilates classes! By the the next week the endorphins were starting to kick in. Getting up wasn’t as much of a struggle and my mood was starting to elevate!

Never underestimate the power of endorphins! Suddenly I was looking at everything more positively. I was thinking clearer about everything. Just that simple mood boost helped change my perspective; made everything else feel more manageable. It wasn’t really the time of year, it was my lack of exercise! When I looked back at my training log and saw how long it had been since I was running consistently, it was no wonder I had been feeling the way I had. So if you need to take aim at something, start with exercise. Even just the American Heart Association’s recommended 150 minutes per week of moderate exercise. Commit to walking a mile every morning before work. And that’s where you need to start if you want to run, whether you’re new to the sport or have been on the sidelines for a long time.

Starting an exercise plan is always hard at first. I’ve been getting up 6 days a week for over a month now to either run or do some sort of strength training or swimming (my go to cross training). It’s still hard. And as I work muscles that have been goofing off for months, I’m sore. If you’re feeling it, don’t give up! Focus on the good. Do you feel stronger? Are the endorphins helping to make you more awake and alive? Do you feel more focused? It takes a lot of discipline and drive at first, but then it starts to feel natural. It’s just getting over that hump.

I’m feeling pretty up! I’m ready for the new year ahead. I noticed that it’s not completely dark out when I leave work now, and this week in New Jersey the thermometer hit 65! This weekend’s schedule includes my first double digit long run since October. Thank god for endorphins! Are you feeling ’em?

Saddle River County Park, Glen Rock, New Jersey. January 2016.