Hey Team,
Have you given any thought as to whether your efforts and your capacity match your expectations?
If not, today might be a good time to give it a try.
Sometimes we set a marvellous goal and give ourselves a timeline but we forget that we don’t necessarily have the time and energy to make that happen within that timeframe.
Then, as a result, we can end up being heard on ourselves or being very disappointed in ourselves when we don’t meet our own expectations.
The problem isn’t that we didn’t work hard enough, nor is it that we weren’t committed enough, the problem is that the time and energy we had available didn’t match the time and energy required to complete that goal in that timeline.
This is never about us not being good enough. It’s just a miscalculation.
I imagine that your goal is to write a first draft of your memoir this year. That’s going to take considerable time and energy.
If you only have one hour per week to work on your memoir, it’s a better idea to adjust the timeline of the project than it is to be upset with yourself about not getting it done in 52 hours.
If you can only fit one strength training session in per week, a goal that requires three strength training sessions is going to be a mismatch.
If you want to improve your shoulder flexibility, but you can only do stretches once a week for 10 minutes, that’s probably not going to be a quick process.
All of these goals are going leave you feeling like you are falling short or like there’s something wrong with you.
But you are doing just fine and there’s nothing wrong with you.
It’s OK to work slowly.
It’s OK to work within your capacity.
It’s OK to inch forward.
The key is to frame your goals and expectations in terms that match your current life and your current capacity.
If you are realistic about what you can accomplish on a regular basis, and you frame your goals accordingly, you will be much more satisfied and motivated, and you’ll be far less likely to be hard on yourself as you go along.
So perhaps your goal could be to work on your memoir for 52 hours this year.
Perhaps your strength training goal could be to extend your training session by a few minutes each month. Or perhaps your goal could be to explore ways to include a second training session per week.
For your shoulder flexibility, perhaps your goal could involve preventative actions changing the the chair you sit in or taking small movement breaks throughout your day.
Framing your goals that way puts them back within your reach and removes the mismatch between what you have to give and what you want to get out of it
We all have different capacities and those capacities differ from day-to-day for each individual.
We need goals that let us work within our capacity instead of shaming us for things that are beyond our capacity.
If we set our expectations based on our current capacity and abilities, we have a much better chance of getting where we want to go.
It may take us a while to get to our big picture goals, but we’ll feel a lot better along the way
So Team, whether today finds you scaling your goals, adjusting your activities, or working out just what you want to do next, I wish you ease and clarity.
And I celebrate your efforts, whatever size and shape they are, with these gold stars.
Go Team Us!
