Ep #165: 4 Essential Steps to Planning Your Next Big Goal

And you got to plan that shit way in the beginning. You can’t just wait until 18-mile week shows up and go, hmm, I wonder how I’m going to make this happen, because you’re going to end up not getting it done.

Welcome to The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. If you’re a woman who has never felt athletic but you still dream about becoming a runner, you are in the right place. I’m Jill Angie, a certified running and life coach and I teach women how to start running, feel confident, and change their lives, and now I want to help you.

Hey rebels. Well, this has been a super exciting week for me because I’ve been working really hard for the past couple months on creating a success path process for Run Your Best Life. And this process is going to help my members become even more successful, and I just launched the beta version of it today, with a little subgroup. And we’re going to spend the next 90 days testing it out.

And I created this process from all of the research and reading and testing out in my own life and observations and I’ve put it all together, and I’m really, really proud of it. I think it’s going to be a game-changer for my Run Your Best Life members.

And the reason I created it is because I’ve noticed in my own life and with my clients that we all have excitement over setting and achieving really big ass goals because it is so fun to imagine what you’re going to feel like when you finish a marathon, or when you lose 100 pounds, or you make $100,000.

But then once the dreaming wears off and reality hits and it’s time to make things happen, a lot of people just sort of give up when it gets hard and when the grind of doing those daily actions, like following a training plan or planning meals, when that’s not fun anymore and we’re not prepared for it because we think, oh, I’ve set this big ass goal, that’s going to be enough to motivate me, then we give up. We feel disappointed and it’s a whole big thing.

But here is the thing. You know it and I know it. The goal isn’t actually what motivates you. Achieving goals is also never about big grand gestures. Goals happen when you take small but essential actions repeatedly over time until you get the result you want.

And sometimes, that’s kind of boring and it’s not super fun. Actually, a lot of the time it’s boring and it’s not super fun. So without a plan or a roadmap or a process to follow to show you kind of where you are along the way and where you need to focus, it’s really easy to give up. So that is what the success path is that I’ve created.

It’s a roadmap with a lot of tools and milestones to make sure you stick with it to the finish line. So today, I thought I would share the first part of that process with you, which is the prep work. And this is the prep work that everybody in my little test beta group is doing as they all set their goals and make their plans.

So I just thought that sounded like fun. I hope you think so too. Let’s get into it. Now, success doesn’t happen by accident. I mean, for sure, you could buy a lottery ticket tomorrow and win a million dollars. Although, you don’t buy a lottery ticket by accident, so even that requires some effort and planning, right?

But seriously, but goals like finishing a marathon or a half marathon, they don’t happen by accident. They happen when you take the time to plan out exactly what you’re going to do and how you’re going to deal with the challenges along the way.

And so this prep work that I am teaching my clients now has four stages to it. The first is defining your goal. The second is deciding why you want to achieve the goal. The third is understanding what’s going to get in your way, and then the fourth is figuring out all the actions that you need to take to make it happen.

And this work is so important and if you do it, you will set yourself up for success in a big way. It’s a game-changer to do this work before you ever set the first foot on your training plan. And actually, let me give you an example.

So imagine you decide you’re going to run a marathon, and you even have the date of the marathon picked out and everything. Imagine you’re going to run it, and you’re like, alright, well I’m just going to run a little bit more every week until I’m able to run 26 miles. That should work, right?

So it doesn’t. It never works. Because what happens is oh, you’ve got a wedding to go to that you forgot about. And if you’re like, oh, I’m just going to look at my training plan each week and do the run that it tells me, you might have a wedding to go to or you might have to work or you didn’t go shopping to make all your running fuel in the house.

And seriously, if you don’t have your running fuel ready to go, that 20-mile run is going to suck. Or maybe you didn’t do laundry to make sure your favorite running tights are available. You can’t just say okay, I’m just going to run a little bit more every week until I get there.

You got to decide, okay, this is the week that I’m going to do my 18-mile run, this is the week I’m going to do my 20-mile run, so that you can set yourself up for success that week. And you got to plan that shit way in the beginning.

You can’t just wait until 18-mile week shows up and go, hmm, I wonder how I’m going to make this happen, because you’re going to end up not getting it done, or your run is going to suck, doesn’t happen at all, whatever it is. The next thing you know, you’ve dropped out of the race completely because you’re not trained. All because you were like, oh no, I’m just going to figure it out as I go.

So prep work is arguably the most important part of goal achieving, goal achievement, if that’s a word, because it gives you a direction. The goal is the address. The goal is the address. It’s your final destination. The prep work you do at the beginning is the turn by turn directions to get you from point A to point B.

So let’s work through that four-step process. First of all, number one, setting your goal in specific terms is super important. Because otherwise, you won’t actually know if you’re making progress. Your goal should be measurable. No uncertainty whatsoever. For example, a lot of people say, “I just want to get healthy.”

Well, how about I want to run three times a week. Running three times a week is something you can measure, it’s something you can plan for. I just want to get healthy is kind of vague, and I promise, if you say, “I want to get healthy,” you’re going to find yourself unclear as to what your progress is and probably eating a lot of ice cream. Ask me how I know.

Another example is, “I want to run a half marathon,” versus, “I want to finish the Philadelphia half marathon in 2021.” Set a date, set a specific place, set specific parameters around it and you’re going to be so much better off when you’re working towards your goal.

If you just say I want to run a half marathon, yeah, when? How are you going to train for this? What’s going to happen between now and you running the half marathon? And if you don’t pick a date to work towards, you’re just going to be like, I don’t know, what should I do this weekend?

So be super specific because when you’re specific, you have a great starting point for your planning because then you’ll be able to create a detailed list of actions to take. Now, having a specific goal is awesome. So that’s step one.

But step two, not as easy. Setting the goal and the time you’re going to complete it and all those parameters, I think that’s the easy part because the next phase is well, what are you going to do on the days when you don’t want to take the necessary actions?

Like getting out of bed at 5am in the dark for a training run in December. There are going to be thoughts in your brain about that. So this is where you have to be very clear on exactly why you want to do it and that’s step two is understanding your why.

And actually, when we went through this process last week with my beta group, they all said, oh, this is the thing I understand the least about myself. I know I want to do it, I don’t really understand why I struggle with finding those reasons.

So I actually created five questions to help you really drill down your actual reasons for wanting to achieve your goal instead of just I want to achieve this so I can feel proud. Because that is part of it, I’m sure that’s a reason for a lot of people. We all want to feel proud, but you can feel proud of a lot of different things. You got to get a little more specific and a little more deep with your reasons when you’re setting a big goal because you’re going to need to draw on them on the days when you don’t want to do it.

So if you’re out running right now by the way, I know you can’t just stop and answer these questions or write them down. But if you go to the show notes for this episode, you can download the transcript and grab them, or you just can come back to this point in the episode when you’re home at your desk.

So don’t worry about it if you’re out running right now. You can think about it but come back and answer them later. So here they are. Question number one, why is this result important to you? Number two, what do you think achieving this result will say about you? Number three, how do you think you will feel when you achieve it?

And this is an emotion. What is the emotion you think you’ll feel when you achieve the goal? Why is that – and actually, this is part two of question number three. And why is that emotion so important? Question number four, how do you think you will be different as a result of achieving this goal? And question number five, how do you think your life will be different as a result of achieving this goal?

And you might go through this process and be like, you know what, this goal isn’t that important to me anymore. You might actually realize that you don’t have a strong why and I don’t know, I don’t think it’s going to have much of an impact on my life. And you might say fuck it, I’m going to do something different.

Or you might be like, holy shit, this is really important to me, and here’s why. So go through these questions. I think they’re super helpful in helping you clarify your thinking. Because the reason that we want to achieve a goal is always because we think there’s going to be some effect on us as a result of having that goal.

So answering the five questions is going to help you understand what effect you think it will have on you, and then you can use those answers to help you stay focused when you want to give up. Now, step three of the planning process, so we have defined our goal, we’ve figured out our reasons for wanting it, now we got to anticipate the challenges that are going to come up and create a plan to deal with that.

And there are going to be challenges. This is not a matter of if. It’s a matter of when. I mean, even if it’s as simple as the weather or traffic or getting sick or injured, those are things that are kind of out of your control. Those you need to be prepared for, but also there’s going to be other challenges that come from your thinking. Like fear and anxiety and indecision and overwhelm.

And if you take time to brainstorm all the things that might get in your way and how you’re going to handle it when it happens, it means you’re going to be able to keep on track, rather than just saying fuck it when something happens, or when your brain decides to be a jerk and tell you that you’re a terrible runner and you’re never going to finish that half marathon.

Because it’s going to happen. And it’s very tempting to skip this step because when you’re excited about a goal, you’re so focused on how great it feels to imagine that goal, it’s very hard to imagine the flip side, which is the stress and the frustration and the overwhelm. But you’re going to be in that spot and taking the time now when you’re planning sets you up for future success, so you don’t have to wallow nearly as long when something comes up.

Now finally, step number four in the planning process is actually to plan. So I want you to brainstorm every single action that you think you’re going to need to take, no matter how small. No matter how silly you think it is, just brainstorm it all out.

I have my clients write down at least 20. At least. And so it should be everything that you think could influence your success. Write it all out. Then you’re going to look at your list and highlight the ones that are going to have the biggest impact because you can’t do everything.

If you write down 20 items, you really can’t do them all. You know you can’t. When we focus our attention on a few essential things, we get really good at those when we try to spread our attention out over a bunch of different things, some essential, some not so much, everything gets half-assed. Nothing gets your full focus and you don’t achieve your goal.

So you’re going to look at your list and then highlight the ones, maybe five that are going to have the greatest impact. And that’s where you’re going to spend your time. And this is a game-changer of a step because for sure, in a perfect world, you do all the things, but you’re busy. You need to make the best use of your time.

And you may find as you go through, there are things that make you feel like, yeah, I’m getting stuff done and you kind of get that nice feeling of like, oh, I did some things today towards my goal, but if they’re not the powerful things, if they’re not the essential things, you’re wasting your time and you’re never going to get there.

So this brainstorming and evaluation step is huge, and it is a game-changer because you’re going to start to see those things that you’re doing that aren’t really helping you move forward, even though they kind of feel like they are. And then you’re going to see the things like, I could do this thing instead and get so much more impact.

So once you’re done with the brainstorming step and you’ve identified the actions that are going to be essential to your success, that’s when you can start executing your plan and making progress. That’s the fun part.

So just to recap, here’s that process one more time. Number one, define your goal very, very clearly and specifically. Number two, figure out the why behind why you want to achieve it. Use my five questions. Number three, anticipate the challenges and know what you’re going to be doing to deal with them. And then number four, brainstorm all the actions and pick the essential few that are going to give you the most bang for your buck and then go all in on those actions.

Okay, so it has been super fun to see my Run Your Best Life members going through this process and have some kind of lightbulb moments about why they might have failed in the past and how they can switch things up this time around to stack the deck in their favor.

So I’m going to keep you posted on how it goes because I’m so excited about this. Now, if you are just starting out on your own running journey, I want you to encourage or I want to encourage you to sign up for my free 30-day running start training plan.

It is perfect for anyone who’s new to running, or maybe even coming back into it after some time off, so just go to notyouraveragerunner.com to sign up. 30-day running start training plan. It’s free. If you know somebody else who could use it, make sure to tell them about it.

And that is it for this week. Okay my friends, I love you. Stay safe, get your ass out there and run, and I will see you next week.

Oh, and one last thing. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, you have to check out the Rebel Runner Roadmap. It’s a 30-day online program that will teach you exactly how to start running, stick with it, and become the runner you’ve always wanted to be. Head on over to rebelrunnerroadmap.com to join. I’d love to be a part of your journey.