Making plans and achieving goals

Much to my surprise I discovered today that I'd actually achieved a few of the goals I set at the beginning of last year! I had a quick review of my journal and read my early January entry for 2015. It included the following goals:

• Get back to 14st
• Get to an 8.2 tennis rating
• Get a clinic up and running in a gym
• Grow the tennis side of things

Well, I hit 14st 3lbs, as far as I can remember I've won enough matches to get my 8.2 rating, I'm about to open a clinic at the gym and I passed my Level 2 coaching course and started coaching more tennis. So that's not bad.

Of course there were some things I didn't manage to achieve, and to be honest, I didn't really go out of my way to hit the targets I did make. They just sort of happened as I continued to work at those things. I guess had I been more intentional as they say, they might have happened sooner, but I'm not exactly chasing down these goals. However, it does make me think a little more about how I can stay focussed and maybe achieve a bit more this year. Improving my rating, for example, gets tougher now. Wins need to happen within a much shorter timescale to count and obviously have to come against better players. Put simply, you can only improve your rating by beating players at the same or a higher level. So it gets harder. You also have to have a positive win/loss percentage.

Fitness is also harder, mainly because I'm getting older and it doesn't get any easier! It's easier to get injured and fitness disappears faster the older you get. So maintaining a level of fitness is hard work, improving even harder. 

Work is very much a matter of word of mouth, but hopefully by opening the clinic that too will grow as will the tennis coaching. Which, by the way, is really good fun!

Business and fun are not just the only things for which I need a plan. I need some discipline in terms of CPD stuff and maintaining my knowledge base in the therapy world. I wish I had the kind of memory where stuff sticks, but I don't, so I need to get out my muscle cards and go through them all again. I'd like to do some work on nerve innervations, and I ought to get the research I did on entrapment of the Lateral Femoral Cutaneous Nerve put into some sort of order.

Add a few books to be read and some faith based goals too and there's quite a lot to be getting on with in 2016. I feel a list coming on!

It's been a Great Year. Really?

I've seen this a lot on dear old Facebook in the last week or so. Obviously an app of some sort that sticks a photo on a jazzy background and declares a "great year" on your behalf. Now I'm just being cynical here, but honestly can you really say it's been a great year? Have you been saying how good it's been all the way through from January to December or have you been moaning about work, money, church, family or football? Do you really need some data mining app to tell you about your year?

Perhaps the real value lies in taking time to look back over the last twelve months and asking some deeper questions about what you've experienced and how you've responded. How are things that within your control going to change next year? Or are you just going to carry on the same way and wait until Facebook or some other social media platform tells you what kind of year you've had?

The New Year is typically the time we look to make resolutions and set out some sort of plan for the coming 12 months. I know there are things I set out to do this year that I simply haven't done. I know I need to change something in order to make those things happen this year, if in fact they are that significant.

If you're planning some resolutions, and you know all about making them "smart", the perhaps you might want to add a few that go beyond the typical lose weight, get fitter, learn to river dance kind of resolutions. Maybe you could add an element of enjoying life a bit more. I don't mean going out and socialising, but taking simple pleasures in life. Taking time to see stuff when you go out for a walk, learning to be thankful for the little things people do for you, asking yourself how you can help those around you be the best that they can be. Maybe these things are a little too subjective for some and a little altruistic for others, but I fear that we are being propelled towards a self-centredness all too often and social media doesn't help.

So if you've truly had a great year, congratulations. Enjoy it, look back and give thanks. As for me, well, it's been an okay year. Not great, not terrible. Bits have been good, some bits really good. Others have have been difficult and hard, days when all I've wanted to do is slip quietly into a corner and sleep through it. Next year could go either way, but it's my intention not to let it drift along.

I'd like to do my Level 2 tennis coaching qualification and get tennis better established in South Ockendon and Chafford. I do plan to get fitter, but that gets harder as I get older! I'd like my therapy business to increase too, but that is also proving tough to do. I have other goals to think about and plans to make. I need to review my journal, a more useful thing to do that look back at my social media postings. What I write in my book is often of the "not for publication" category. One of my goals for 2015 is to recover some discipline about keeping my journal.

As for this years goals, well I didn't make it to an 8.2 but I'm only 3 wins away from that, and I didn't drop under 14st, which was another goal I had in mind. Truthfully I didn't make that much of an effort to reach that one. As for any other goals, I can't remember what they were, I'll have to look them up!

Here comes 2015!

The Myth of Talent

I've started reading Matthew Syed's book "Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice". It's a book I've been wanting to read for some time along with Malcolm Gladwell's "Tipping Point". Gladwell's book was first published in 2000, and Bounce in 2011, so I'm typically late to the party, but better late than never!

The premise of Bounce is that practice not talent is what produces excellence. Elite sports people might look super talented, but it's the hours of practice that make the difference. The first part of the book is all about debunking the myth that it's talent that distinguished the best from the rest, and that anyone can achieve things that seem beyond their abilities with sufficient application. Interesting.

Syed cites a number of researchers and research studies that support his thesis, and the data is compelling. It's quite heartening to know that, for example, I can become a consistently better tennis player given enough practice. But the practice must be purposeful rather than undirected. There's one great quote from Jack Nicklaus:

It isn't so much a lack of talent; it's a lack of being able to repeat good shots consistently that frustrates most players. And the only answer to that is practice.

 Okay, so here's the not so good news. It takes 10,000 hours of practice to achieve excellence! At 1,000 hours a year, that means it takes on average 10 years to achieve that level of performance. This apparently holds true across the board. Those youngsters who appear talented beyond their years and in comparison to their peers, on investigation have just compressed their practice into a shorter time frame and have had the advantage of superior coaching along the way.

How does that inform the rest of us? Well, take the example of church leadership, something I have some experience in! When someone is appointed to the leadership team of a church do we just assume they come with all the skills and gifts required of them to perform well as a leader? How do we give them the time to practice, to prepare for leadership? How do we develop their skills so they become excellent leaders?

We can't get them practicing four hours a day for the next ten years, and in truth they come to the leadership table with many gifts and skills already developed. That's why we appointed them, right? But a typical two terms as a deacon in many baptist churches might just not give someone the opportunity to truly develop their potential. Asking them to serve for 10+ years in a row would often wear out all but the most determined or simply belligerent of leaders!

I don't have an answer, but simply ask the question. As for me, I realise a couple of things. Firstly, if I'm going to improve my tennis I need to practice more and maybe play less. At the very least the balance of practice and play needs to be thought through. When it comes to my massage practice, there's a similar challenge around the amount of clinical practice I need to go from being a competent therapist and an excellent one. Sadly I probably don't have enough years left to fully achieve my potential in either of these disciplines, but that doesn't mean I don't have a target in mind and some goals to achieve.

The point here I guess is that you need a plan. Whatever your goals might be and no matter how realistic they appear, the key is in that phrase "purposeful practice". It might be a simple plan, for example to hit ten consecutive cross court forehands into a specific area of the court rather than just "over and in". It might be to sign up for a CPD course on sports injuries to further my knowledge base for therapy.

And for you? How are you going to apply the principle that it's not about how much talent you have but how much you are willing to invest in practice whatever that might mean?

2014: When did that happen?!

Well, it's 2014. Already two weeks into the new year and I'm wondering how we got this far. Actually the start to the year has been pretty quiet. Last year I had quite a few funerals in January, but so far this year I've only got one, but I have had to say no to a couple, so may things are similar to 2013. The "no's" arose because they fell on a day I was unavailable because of a non-moveable appointment. I'm always disappointed when I have to say no to a funeral. Not because of the fee, but because I feel like I'm letting family down by being unavailable. But that's inevitable some times, an unavoidable consequence of life.

My unavailability on that day was because I was teaching in a local college. I'd been invited to do a couple of workshops about nutrition, fitness, anatomy and physiology with dance students. It was a good, interesting and challenging day. I was quite exhausted by the end of it. Hopefully there will be other opportunities to do the same in the next academic year.

So, 2014, what are my plans, hopes and dreams? Well, to be honest, I've not really given it a great deal of thought. I caught myself asking someone a question the other day about their one big hope for the year, only to wonder if I had one. Turns out I did, but unlike other years when I've sat down and given careful thought to the vision for the coming year in church, these last two years haven't had that focus. Last year my 'vision' was to complete y course and get qualified, but this year, well i don't seem to have a plan yet.

Off the top of my head I have a few goals I'd like to achieve. Getting under 14st, would be one of them! I'd also like to get my LTA rating down to 8.2. Both of those are measurable and ought to be achievable. In fact reaching the first could help with the second if it means I'll be fitter and a little faster around the court. The second requires me to win two competitive matches, which doesn't sound hard but last year's results tell a different story. Hopefully I'll play better this year, and I'll try to practice more too. What I need is a hitting partner with whom to practice and some match play strategy.

Losing the extra weight is going to be tough. I know we did it a few years ago, but I didn't work hard enough at keeping it off and I'm not sure what to do about it this time. In one sense it's really simple. Move more, eat less. But simple as it sounds, it's more difficult in practice. Eating less is easier when you measure what you eat, so keeping a diary will help there. But it's not just a matter of volume, it's the calories that count. If I were giving myself advice about this I'd probably say don't beat yourself up about what you can't change, but take action in what you can change. Take positive steps towards your goal not negative ones.

So, let's get 2014 on the road. Set some goals, work out a plan, write a list. Do whatever it takes to set out on a journey towards 2015 that hopefully won't mean 2014 ends with a list of if only's but that it ends with a list of I did that's instead!

Spiritual goal-setting

Okay, so January is fast closing in on it's last day. Snow is about to bring the UK to a grinding halt. Some people are really happy about the snow, school closures and days off, but give them a few days and they will be just as frustrated about it as the rest of us that don't mind snow, but don't embrace it in quite the same way.

But while you're buried under a blanket trying to keep warm without putting the heating in order to save on the gas bill, why not stop watching mindless TV or endless recorded films and TV series from your DVD/Blueray/digital library and give some though to some spiritual goals. You don't actually have to be religious to have spiritual goals, sometimes it can even get in the way!

From a Christian perspective let me offer a few suggestions now that you've probably let slip your New Year resolution to read the Bible four times this year, at least once in a original language. First of all, keep them simple and achievable. For example, why not join the growing group who choose to sat The Lord's Prayer everyday at 12:00 noon. I have a repeat alarm on my iPhone that goes off at 12:00. I don't always hear it if it's out of range of my hearing or in a bag, and I don't always get the chance to say the prayer if I'm in the middle of a funeral, a meeting or even a tennis match.

Or, if a daily event isn't your thing, what a simple commitment to prayer each week for your neighbours. I sometimes pray Aaron's blessing over the streets along which I walk on my training routes. As we work out how to pray down the streets of our community, we've applied the same principle. Rather than go out desperately seeking revelation about families and houses as we walk, we simply prayer prayers of blessing. If God reveals something, fine, if not we can still bless our neighbours as we go.

There are probably hundreds if not thousands of simple things that you can incorporate into your routine that will form good habits if you just sit down and think about it. Rather than setting out some grand plan, go simple, even easy. you can always build on it later once the habit has developed. For example, if you take up the Lord's prayer challenge, once a week you could take a little longer to apply the principles of the prayer. After all it's a pattern of prayer not just a prayer. Think about what it mans to cal God "Our Father, who is in heaven". And so on.

Go on, go on, as Mrs Doyle might say (meaningless if you haven't seen Father Ted), use your snow day to set some goals!

Training for a challenge?

Training is always a challenge, I guess that's part of the reason we both do it and give up doing it. Whether it's training for a new career (like Sports Massage in my case), or training for an event or just for fitness, it has to be enough of a challenge to make it worth the effort.

In fitness terms, if you don't progressively overload, you won't actually achieve any improvements. In other words, if your exercise routine is always manageable and doesn't leave you out of breath and sweating, then you're probably not working hard enough.

I'm aware that I need a new challenge if I'm going to take the next step when it comes to maintaing and improving my fitness and health. Sadly, doing 30 minutes of moderate exercise 5-7 days a week just to keep my heart healthy doesn't seem to be enough of a motivation for me to get out and pound the streets. I need something else to make me want to lace up my trainers or my new Vibram Five Finger shoes.

Since I first heard about the Oxfam Trailwalk, my interest was piqued. Could I walk 100Km in 30 hours? It doesn't seem too difficult, it's only just under 3.5Km an hour average (that's only just over 2mph), but it is 100Km! The furthest I've walked in a single day is around 24Km, but that was a while ago and I didn't do any training for that. So I reckon, with some proper fitness training I could manage significantly more, but could I get to 100Km.

This is where some short term and medium term goals might come in handy. So I thought I might set myself the goal of doing a 50Km walk sometime next year, maybe May. It's just a thought at the moment, but maybe this would be a good goal and a good stepping stone towards the 100Km trail! I'll need to work out a training schedule of course, but I can put all that PT training to good use.

Two years ago my 10k step challenge kept me motivated for a whole year as I played with various milestones (forgive the pun) along the way. If I'd have set out to do 4 million steps in a year, then that target would have seemed way to big to get anywhere near. Imagine how far away it would have looked after a couple of weeks! But I did it by setting a daily target. When I wanted to push the challenge a bit more, I went for 500,000 steps in a single month. I need to recapture some of that mentality for a new challenge.

So here's to the crazy idea of looking to walking to Southend and back in a single day! That's about 60Km from where I live, if you follow the main route. I wonder if there is a road to Southend that is the road less travelled?

Time to get back in the trainers!

Is it really two years ago since I embarked on my 10k steps a day for 100 days challenge? Incredible! I remember all the analysis and number crunching that went on throughout that year. Wasn't it something ridiculous like 4 million steps in the year? I also remember taking on the challenge to do 500k steps in a month!

Goals are really important for both focus and motivation. But you have to be careful. If you set them too high, you will suffer the disappointment of never reaching your unrealistic goals. If you set them too low, they probably won't help you achieve the bigger goal behind them, if there is one, or they will somehow become too easy to reach and demotivating as a result.

So I'm wondering abut revisiting those old goals and seeing if I can achieve them again. Will I have the same drive a second time around I wonder? Will I go out in the snow and the rain to complete my daily steps? Who knows. The only way to find out is to do it.

So it needs a bit of thought, but as I posted my morning walk via Runkeeper, I did notice that the pace was below my old 4mph target, so that might be a place to start and set a goal f walking 4 miles in an hour once a week (that's 6.4Km if my maths is correct).

I also need some strength training goals and a few goals not directly related to fitness! I wonder how many goals it's realistic to load into one's life at any one time! I suspect it's a personal thing, but trying to finish a course, start a business, get fit, lose weight, start church, and finish the house, well maybe I'm in danger of having a few too many.

As for now, I'll think about setting one goal for each thing on my list and look to plan towards that. Sounds to me like I need to dust off my copy of Getting Things Done and reread it for a bot of motivation.

Looking back~Looking forward

I had one of those moments today when I found myself quietly inspired, as against Saturday's moment when I thought the floor was sloping left to right (it's another of my odd migraine associated symptoms). Anyway, back to this morning. I was writing in my journal and decided to flick back to last year to see what I was writing about then. Normally I start a fresh journal each year, but this year I stayed with the journal I had used through 2007, mainly because it's thicker than most and I hadn't used up more than half of it.

Turning back the pages I came across a note I made to myself about three things to focus on for 2008: inspiring prayer, inspiring outreach and inspiring discipleship. Sadly a week later we got hit by the disappearance of Robert Gill and his death. All thoughts of being inspirational got lost in the pain of Robert's murder. 

So it was both challenging and comforting to reread those entries and to realise that one of the great values of a journal is that you need never lose track of a thought or a reflection if you maintain a little self-discipline about keeping a journal. And, as a result of reading the comments I made a year ago, I've decided to refocus my efforts to do these three things in 2009. 

I must say that although I'd forgotten about them, clearly God had not. I've been thinking about these issues on and off throughout the year. I hope and pray that this is not just a good idea but a God-idea.

Initially I'd like to work out one thing in each area that we can do to take a step forward as individuals and as a community. Jeff's NT giveaway makes me think it's time again to challenge the church, and myself, to a reading plan. Probably just the New Testament over the course of a year would be a good place to start.

Another thing I'm considering is a good look at Todd Hunter's Three is Enough idea to see if we can stimulate some deeper level relationships. I have other ideas in the pipeline of my mind and I'm mind-mapping them to see where they might lead.

So, once again my journal has proved it's value to me. I do not need convincing about the value of a journal and a process to review it. A blog simply isn't enough. For one thing it's way to public. Even a simple mundane blog like mine gets traffic and it would just be unwise to commit everything to such a media. 

So put a journal on your late entry Christmas list. It doesn't need to be flash, a simple ring bound notebook from Tescos will do the job. Even if you find it hard work to begin with, stick with it. I had to persevere over a long period before it became a regular part of my routine. Even now I have to discipline myself to get my pen out and start to write. 

But I'm pretty confident that if you persevere, you will find it so helpful.

I swam today!

Great excitement today!

I went to the gym to do a little bit of training followed by a swim. Swimming has become an important part of my exercise routine, but I'm still struggling to swim properly (by that I mean fitting in breathing). Ally tells me I'm doing really well given that it's only been two years, but it's still frustrating.

I've been working on breaststroke since the summer when it sort of clicked while we were on holiday. As usual it's the breathing that's the problem. I think that subconsciously my mind is saying to my body, "You're in water, don't breathe", so even when I get my face clear of the water and open my mouth, very little air appears to go in.

But I keep trying and today it seemed to click and I found myself breathing fairly uniformly as I swam the 13m length of the pool. I turned, and swam back again. Now I've done that before but not with the smoothness that seemed to be a feature of today's effort. 

After that I went on to swim one length on my back and one breaststroke for another 20 lengths or so.

Given that Ally wasn't there to witness this amazing triumph I'd just like to take this opportunity to tell myself, "Well done." 

This may of course not be a big thing for you, but for me, after so many years not in the water, I'm really excited about every little breakthrough I experience. And if you think you too old to learn or too old to change the way you swim, then I float here as a reminder that if you're less than 51, there's still time! I can't speak for anyone older!

Which then makes me think: When do we stop setting goals for ourselves? Perhaps when we forget that life is a gift that's worth exploring. Perhaps when we lose the sense of joy that comes from doing something for the first time. For me, I can't wait to go swimming with Anne and/or Ally to show them what I've learnt. I just hope it wasn't a fluke today.

I guess I'll find out on Monday, if that's the next time I go swimming.