You don’t have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things to compete. You can just be an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals.                 Sir Edmund Hillary

THE DREAM

 “What event /activity would get me really excited?” “What would be amazing to achieve?” “Do I believe that I could actually do that if I go about it in the right way?” If you don’t believe it can happen then you are 100% guaranteed that it won’t. It’s like when you are on the putting green and all that is going through your head is that you are going to miss! Well you probably will! 

“If you think you can do it, you’re right. If you think you can’t do it, you’re still right”                                                                     Henry Ford 

The other thing that sometimes limits our goal setting is a fear of failure! People don’t set the goal they really want because they are afraid of what will happen (or what other people will think) if they fail. Don’t worry about everyone else. Most of the time they are too busy with their own stuff to worry about yours as well.  

THE STEPS TO REACH THE GOAL

Think big, start small! You have set your goal and now you must work out how you are going to achieve it. If you take lots of small steps it will make it manageable. Using kayaking as an example, your first goal might be to go out to the lake, have a look at the kayaking set-up and then go home! You should be pleased with yourself…. You have taken the first step!

Next time you may go to the lake, get in a boat and have a little play around for half an hour…. Awesome. You may then go to the lake and try to paddle in a straight line for 30mins…. That’s progress. Gradually you will be able to put all the steps together so that you are proficient on the lake and then make the step to the river. The problem is people often start at step 8, bite off more than they can chew, have a horrible time and give up!

Take me for example...learning to paddle a skinny multi-sport kayak so that I could do the Coast 2 Coast. Having not been in any kind of kayak for about 15 years, my first mistake was thinking I could paddle 9km down Lake Karapiro…well I did, but got incredibly frustrated trying to steer, couldn’t move my upper body for the next couple of days and very nearly didn’t go back!  

GOOD GOALS ARE

• EXACT: I want to do the Coast 2 Coast in a team in Feb 2009 
• HAVE A TIME LINE: Have 9 months to prepare 
• HAVE THE STEPS REQUIRED TO ACHIEVE THE GOAL: Learn to paddle, learn to Eskimo roll, get Grade 2 certificate, get on white water regularly, buy a boat, build up biking, get family involved etc 

WHAT IF I DON’T REACH MY GOAL THE FIRST TIME?

It doesn’t matter! Sometimes thing do just turn to custard. Usually though we learn something along the way and make changes next time so that we can succeed. 

“Only those who dare to fail greatly can achieve greatly”  

                                                             Robert F Kennedy

PS....Now is the perfect time to be setting your GOAL for next summer. So get out that notebook and commit to paper just what you want to achieve. If you write it down it makes it much more real!