Micro-goaling my way to big things!
In the pursuit of our goals, whether they be fitness-related or not, the power of micro-goals cannot be overlooked. Setting simple, small achievable goals is a great tool for breaking down daunting challenges or big life changes. During every ultra race I’ve ever done there comes a point where my legs are on fire, mind questioning my life when I break out my secret weapon: counting steps. I tell myself just 100 more and you can take a breather or maybe I’ll pick the bottom of the hill or that next tree. Micro-goals turn every crazy, beast of a race into a set of achievable goals. And for those of you with the big goal of being healthier, start somewhere simple. Drink more water! Tracking how much water you drink! Set a goal! Hopefully, that will sound a little familiar to those of you that have been reading so far.
Fitness-wise one of my big goals each year revolves around running a target number of miles. For 2023, my goal is 1500 miles. Last year, I set my goal at 1450 miles which I barely squeaked out in the l last few days of last year so that made 1500 for this year seem like a daunting challenge. It seemed like so much of a challenge that I almost chickened out but I knew that setting achievable micro-goals throughout the year would make this challenge seem less daunting.
The most difficult time to get miles in for me is the winter for the obvious reasons of the cold, snow, and short days but also because I love snowboarding which messes up my weekend running routine. So each of the last two winters I set the micro-goals of getting at least 100 miles a month, 20 miles a week. Those numbers put me a little behind the pace of 1500 miles in the year but it keeps me consistently chugging through the winter months.
And that brings us to today, on the last day of November, I have run 1403 miles so far in 2023, 136 miles this month, and have run more than 100 miles in the last 34 months. Today I got a 3 mile run in and a CrossFit workout which burned around 700 calories so my calories out for today was 2200 calories. I drank 32 ounces of water and got 6 hours of sleep. I skipped breakfast, had chicken tenders and fries from Canes for lunch and leftover green curry chicken for dinner.
