I posted this on my SparkPeople blog today, and I wanted to put it here as well.  I’ve been doing a lot of planning in the past month or so, hence the theme.  If you’re interested in the other posts I mention in this post, or in my SparkPeople blog, here’s a link to that:

CJROMB – SparkPeople Blog

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I love this quote: 

Excellence is 
…the result of caring more than others think is wise, 
…risking more than others think is safe, 
…dreaming more than others think is practical, and 
…expecting more than others think is possible 

What would 2010 look like for you if you wanted to be able to say you succeeded in your personal Pursuit of Excellence!? 

It will take a mission you’re passionately committed to, but that’s not enough! 

You have to set objectives and map out the actions that support those objectives. 

SMART Goals can help you. I put a link in my post Planning to Fail All the Way To Success to a website where they talk about various words the acronym S.M.A.R.T. can stand for. 

Here’s my version of the SMART acronym: 

Specific 
Mission-Driven (or Motivational) 
Achievable 
Rewarded 
Time-Oriented 

Let’s say my goal is to get out of the osteoporosis range on my spinal bone density by the end of 2010. 

SPECIFIC 
I have to be able to visualize it. It doesn’t work to say “I’ll work on having healthier bones.” It has to be specific, measurable. Something I can shoot for. Last year my goal was to burn 130,000 calories. The year before it was 140,000. I didn’t quite make it either year, BUT, it sure moved me in the correct direction, enough to lose all the weight I originally set out to lose, plus an extra 10 pounds for a total of 50. 

So if I can do that? I can do this, too! 

So here’s my SPECIFIC so far: 
Before using prescription medication or injections, I’ll increase my bone density by changing my workouts to include strength training. I’ll increase my calcium intake to 1500 per day, and increasing my Vitamin D. 

Even that’s not specific enough. To be effective, it would be ideal to describe what the path towards the strength training is going to be, especially considering my resistance to resistance training. I will be mapping that out in the next week or so as I gradually accept this as a path I want to follow. 

MISSION-DRIVEN / MOTIVATIONAL 
What do I want to accomplish? What’s my motivation, my mission, the goal, the objective? 

My mission statement is “I will use my life, past, present and future, to teach, motivate and inspire myself and others.” 

I’m not the only person on the planet who’s struggled with weight and I’m not the only person who’s struggled with weight-lifting. Overcoming something I’m resistant to teaches me how to work with myself better. My hope is that by being here and being open about the path I’m going to take, others will be inspired to work well with themselves to overcome obstacles in the pursuit of EXCELLENT health! 

Also, on a more detailed motivational, mission-driven level, in order to be as EXCELLENT as I can be, my health requires attention. I will not follow my Dad’s footsteps and suffer the fate he’s suffered this year. I will not break my back because I’m fragile again like I did in 2008. 

I think I’ve got enough MOTIVATION and MISSION-DRIVENNESS here, eh?  

Specifically, my mission, my objective is to increase my spinal bone density to be out of the osteoporosis range by the end of 2010, if possible without prescription medication or injections. 

ACHIEVABLE 
It’s not achievable or reasonable to say I can do this in a month. I wrote a blog awhile back about someone who said they were going to lose 50 pounds in a few months. Perhaps, but keep it off? Accomplish it without deprivation? Do the inside work necessary to keep the outside healthy? I don’t believe that can happen. 

As I don’t think I can go out next week to the Y and fix everything overnight. 

But what IS achievable? Is it reasonable or achievable for me to bring my bone density out of osteoporosis level in a year? I don’t know. This will take some research and at least one conversation with my Dr. But let’s say I only increase it a little. That’s a step in the right direction, and that’s DEFINITELY achievable and reasonable! 

So the goal, the objective is reasonable. Is the way I’m going to accomplish it also reasonable and achievable? This is where Baby Steps come in. If I try to tell myself I’m going to go to the Y, starting today, and lift 5 days a week, every one of you can tell me EXACTLY how that’s going to go for me. Fail. For sure. Probably immediately. 

But if I use my self-awareness to work WITH me, I can make this happen. What I’m doing is using the weakness of getting BORED immediately with everything as a strength. Weight lifting is NEW, the Y is NEW for me. Swimming is NEW for me. I like NEW things! And while I’m enjoying the NEWNESS of it, and before I get bored with it, I will Plan for Failure as I wrote about in my blog about Planning to Fail. I never FAIL to come up with something NEW, and I’m sure this strength training path will be no different. Already I’m looking around for inspiration and tools. I found OXYGEN magazine a few days ago and started absorbing it today just by looking at the pictures. No commitment to reading it just yet. The pictures were enough. The pictures alone made me want to go to the gym. The pictures are creating NEW paths in my brain. And ever since I went swimming at the Y the other day? I’ve been wanting to go back and do it again! 

REWARDED 
It’s critical that everything we do have a reward tied to it. Very, very few of the things we do in our lives are purely altruistic. Even if our goal is making someone else happy, our reward is having that happen. 

It’s important BEFORE we undertake the task at hand to state for ourselves what our reward will be. It might be something tangible like a sticker, or a new song. it might be something less immediate like healthier bones. I try to put both types of rewards in place for myself. The less immediate reward is generally very closely tied to the motivation or mission I have in mind. The more immediate reward? That’s just fun for me. 

And while I’m rewarding myself? Why not give it to myself BEFORE I accomplish the goal? Think about this! 1) Who’s the parent anyway? Don’t you want to be a LOVING parent to yourself? Spoil yourself FIRST. Give yourself the GIFT, the REWARD BEFORE you do anything other than state the goal. Watch what happens once you have that actual reward. I promise it will reverse your mindset. You’ll feel the need to EARN what you already have because you OWE it to yourself! Try it. 

TIME-ORIENTED 
Do it. Set a time. For me, I’m going to say by December, 2010 for improving my bone density out of osteoporotic range. I can adjust this time frame if it’s inappropriate in one direction or the other. I might have guessed wrong on how long or short of a timeline this goal needs, and sometimes life happens. 

In 2007, I said my goal for 2008 was to burn 140,000 calories. I wanted to lose 40 pounds. December 2008 rolled around, and well, I’d only lost 30 pounds. I hadn’t burned 140,000 calories either. But was I pissed about it? Nuh-uh! Because along the way, losing the 30 pounds I lost, and burning the calories I DID burn, I changed my life forever! And that was a REWARD I didn’t have a CLUE I’d get. 

I added another 10 pounds to the 10 I had left, and set my sites on 2000 calories a week for 2009. Partway through the year, I realized my calorie burning goal wasn’t going to get me where I wanted to go; I realized 2500 was what it took. Okay, I adjusted. 

I’d lost the 20 pounds in September. And this year, after thinking I’d already had the drastic life-change from all this? Pffft…wrong again! 2009 was by far one of the most challenging…and one of the most rewarding years of my life. 

2010 is around the corner. If I’m SMART in my Pursuit Of Excellence, I bet the sky’s my limit! 

How about you? Did you write on my post about your 3 Critical Success Factors? What SMART goals are you putting in place to make your pursuit of excellence a life-changing blast?

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