If you want to become the best version of yourself, it’s probably a good idea to figure out what that might look like before you begin.  Why’s that, you ask?  If I want to become a better athlete, that’s all well and good.  Hell, it sounds like a pretty noble goal on the surface.  But without defining what it means to be a better athlete, how do I know if I achieve my goal?  How do I even know if I’m heading in the right direction?  Becoming a “better athlete” is too ambiguous, and is subject to an extremely high rate of failure or abandonment because you’ll have no idea what the hell you’re working towards or whether or not you’re succeeding or failing.  Does being a “better athlete” mean that I can run faster/jump higher/lift heavier weights at the gym?  Does it mean all of those things?!  If so, I can think of no other way to fail at something than to try to do everything at the same time.

 

The Importance of Defining your Goal

To lay the groundwork for success, it’s necessary to be more specific.  You could try to become a “better athlete,” but you may end up with a mash-up of activities that feel like a prescription fro success but achieve precisely nothing.  If you were to to try and become a “better distance runner,” on the other hand, that helps narrow down your activities a bit.  The problem is that ambiguous “better” part; If you want to be able to run 9-minute miles for a half-marathon (13.1 miles), the goal becomes much clearer and the steps necessary to achieve it become easier to uncover.  With a specific goal in sight, we can establish a starting point to see what the delta is between our current self and our SuperSelf for this particular task and create a plan to bridge the gap.  With an unclear goal and end-point in mind, you will likely mistep, give up, or fail to see results.

Researching the task at hand also becomes a much easier task, as Googling “becoming a better athlete” will have me bleeding from the eyes from the sheer volume of crap I’d have to sift through to find valuable data that may or may not be relevant to my ambiguous goal.  See below screenshot; I get habits for elite athletes, basic tips, tips for getting bigger, and tips for being a better runner.  What if I wanted to improve my endurance as a soccer player?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now let’s try searching for a specific goal.  With a specific goal of 9-minute miles for 13 miles, I know that my goal finishing time is just under 2 hours for a half marathon.  Look at the difference in the top search results; They are all super-relevant and include things like pre-made training schedules, plans, and a pace calculator.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Few Examples

Life is no different than Google – if you don’t define what you want, you probably won’t get it.  Shopping is another great example of this; If you go to the furniture store to find new furniture, but you have no idea what color/style/pieces you want in the room, you’ll spend a couple hours browsing and you’ll either (1) find nothing or (2) buy something that you probably won’t be happy with in a couple months.

Here’s an example from my personal repertoire: I want to become a better guitar player – but I must be more specific.  I want to be able to improvise blues and rock solos on the electric guitar, specifically in the styles of John Mayer and B.B. King.  See how easy that was?  Now I can pick apart John & B.B.’s playing styles, focus on chord theory for rock and blues music, and teach myself the core skills necessary to improvise within that context.  Boom.

More examples:
Get in shape – Lose 15lbs in 2 months
Write a book – Write at least 200 words every day for a month
Find a new job – Profile 5 companies I’d like to work that offer better health benefits and apply
Go on vacation – Explore the vineyards of the French Riviera for a week
Make more money – Make at least $4,000 per month to pay off student loans by 2015

Your turn!  Take one of your ambiguous goals that you’ve been hanging onto for awhile – that New Years resolution you’ve made 3 years in a row, that childhood dream you haven’t talked about in a few years – and give it some laser focus.  Once your goal is crystalized, you can break it into smaller, manageable pieces and take your first step forward.

What’s your goal?  Share it with me in the comments below, the SuperSelf Facebook page, or on Twitter with #superself.