You have to go your own way when setting and accomplishing goals.

No one will set goals for you; this is your first thought, right? But lots of people will set lots of goals for you over your life. When you are a kid, your parents set lots of goals for you. Most of them you probably don’t even know about. Or at least didn’t know about it at the time. Bet you didn’t know that they just wanted you to walk on your own after carrying you around for the better part of a year.

As we get older more people set goals for us. You have goals at work that your boss expects you to achieve. You still have goals your parents expect you to rise to. And you have goals your spouse, your siblings, or your closest friends will try and set for you.

Sometimes we care about those goals, but most of the time I bet you are like me. I don’t really care what my parents’ goals are for me anymore. I’m a grown man. My spouse has all sorts of goals for me and half of them I don’t even know what they are. I don’t care about most of those goals. If you think that is mean, the problem is that I don’t really care about most of the goals I set for myself. But I’m working on it.

For me, working on goal setting means going my own way. All these people around me have goals for me. But I have to set my own, on my own, and do them on my own. Strategically looking for partners, not just using people around me.

I was trying to run a 5K with my wife. I’m horribly addicted to Monster Energy drinks (I like the blue lo-carb ones) and my wife hates that I drink them. I hate that my wife is a couch potato and doesn’t have any physical goals. One of my wife’s good friends wants to run a 5K without walking for her 50th birthday in June of this year. I thought it would be great if my wife and she did it together. They could push each other and make both of them accomplish something big. I roped my wife into it and said I would do it with her. I also said I will completely quit drinking Monsters if she finishes the 5K without walking.

My wife trained for two weeks a month ago and hasn’t hit the pavement since. I’ve been hitting the treadmill for the last month twice a week trying to get up to a running speed so I could keep up with them. I really have no desire to run a 5K and my friend invited me to do another bike race.

I loved doing the bike race last month! Now there is another one right here in San Antonio that is at the end of June. And I can go from doing 25 miles to doing 40 miles this time. A nice progression.

I tried having a heart-to-heart with my wife about the 5K goal and she really didn’t seem into it. So I went my own way. I signed up for the Tour De Boerne bike race on June 25. I’m going to do 40 miles and I’ve already started training. Today I rode 32 miles with a group. Next week I’ll try and ride a bunch.

I’m learning that despite what others do or don’t do, have goals, or don’t have goals, you have to find your own goal and go after it for your reasons. That way the monotony of every day doesn’t get in the way of you achieving your goal.

Your goals are something that you have to work on every day. So you better like working on your goal. If you don’t enjoy the process, if you don’t like the direction of your goal, you aren’t going to get it done. And if you do complete the goal it will be empty and have no meaning.

Go your own way. Pick your own goal. Then work on it every day, of every week, of every year until you achieve that goal. Once you hit that goal then go on to the next one.

The last thing I’m learning about goals is you can only work on as many as you can work on every day, of every week, of every year. If you don’t have time, energy, or enough drive to work on all your goals today, you need to put some of them on the back burner and do the ones you can work on every day.

Now get after your goals,

Ben Branam

What I’m using to work on my goals right now:

• The Full Focus Planner by Michael Hyatt: I used this on and off and back onto it. It is a daily planner that puts your goals upfront. I think it needs a little more. Use it, but cut your goals down to a couple. There is room for like 20 upfront. Then add a section on the daily pages in the notes or other areas that says what you are going to do that day to work on each goal.
• The Bucket List Journal: I’m just starting this one, but heard the writer, Ben Nemtin, on a podcast and was so inspired by how his life changed by working on his bucket list (I hear BIG GOALS) that I bought the book and the planner to work through it.

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