We all have goals. And for the most part, we all have good goals:
“I want to lose more weight and get in better shape.”
“I want to be a better spouse.”
“I want to be a champion.”
“I want to be a better parent.”
“I want to be a success in my profession.”
So why do we have such a hard time meeting our goals? Here are 3 P’s to help you be successful at achieving your goals:
HAVE A PURPOSE
If you want to be successful at achieving your goals, then you need start with a purpose. A goal is nothing without purpose. The purpose behind your goal is what allows you to persevere through the difficult times. “I want to lose more weight and get in better shape,” is a goal, but it lacks a purpose.
I’m sure nearly everyone who joins a gym or starts a new diet at the beginning of the year has the same goal – to lose weight and get in better shape. Maybe you’ve done the same. You’ve eaten every meal according to a diet plan. You’ve been in the gym every day, lifting weights, running on the treadmill. You’ve prayed daily for better health. And yet, by March or April, almost all of you will be back to your old eating habits and disappeared from the gym – and not because you now look like a supermodel, or you are now in elite fighting shape. Why? Since you didn’t have a well-defined purpose to your goal, when it got tough, when it got difficult, when it got busy, it was easier to just give it up than keep going.
Contrast this to the person who has diabetes or cancer, and HAS to maintain a certain level of health so he can one day walk his daughter down the aisle at her wedding, or dance with his wife at his 50th anniversary, or experience whatever his “Promised Land” might be. This person eats and trains with a very deeply rooted purpose. Is there a difference when this person experiences a few difficulties on his way to his goal? Most definitely. Does he quit when it gets tough? No way.
Now, maybe you don’t have diabetes or cancer or some major health concern powering your goal. You can still find a purpose, and a positive one at that. For me, I still compete and teach, so much of my training revolves around striving to continually improve myself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. However, on top of that, I have a seven year-old son that I want to be physically competitive in sports until he is sixteen. I also have a three year-old daughter. When the day comes, I want to always be in the back of the mind of any boy that comes around. So even if I were to retire from competition, my training would still have a few other purposes to keep me going even when I want to stop.
I have clients I coach tell me they want to lose weight and get in better shape. Before we even start talking about eating or exercising, we have a very thorough discussion and define the client’s true purpose for wanting to lose weight and get in better shape. What the client then finds out about him or herself can often be more helpful than actually losing weight and getting in better shape. So it is important to establish a purpose behind your goal.
HAVE A PLAN
Once you have a purpose for your goal, then you need to have a plan to get there. Your GPS navigation system in your car may be a great tool to get you from point A to point B on the streets. However, there are no GPS systems for achieving your life goals. So you need to have a plan. As famed UCLA basketball coach John Wooden said, “Failing to plan is planning to fail.”
When putting together your plan, you can create a timeline as detailed as you want it to be. With my coaching clients, we sometimes break down goals into individual objectives, strategies, and tactics. We sometimes take a personal inventory to analyze strengths and weaknesses, and then plan on ways to bolster those weak areas. And all of my clients write it down. A plan is just a fleeting thought if it isn’t in writing. So formalize it and write it down. And don’t forget to have contingencies, since life doesn’t always comply with our most carefully thought out plans.
You might not exactly be the “planning type.” You might be more emotional, touchy-feely, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants, let’s-see-how-I-feel, type of person, as opposed to the schedule-every-minute-of-the-day type of person. To the person who is more a feeler than a planner, I say this: YOU NEED TO HAVE A PLAN! Hope is not a plan. “I want to” is not a plan. If you want to make a million dollars but don’t have a plan on how you’re going to do it, then you’re just dreaming. Planning creates a realistic structure to achieving your goal. Without a plan, you will be lost. Every tomorrow will become just another yesterday.
PARTNER UP!
Once you have your purpose for your goal and your plan to get there, you need to have a partner. I don’t care how self disciplined you are or how good you are at what you do, you need to have a partner. Look at any great, from Muhammad Ali to Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods to Jim Brown, and they all had a partner, whether a coach, trainer, mentor, or even a parent. A partner encourages you when you want to quit, refocuses you when you lose sight of your purpose, and holds you accountable when you waver from your plan. Without a partner, it is too easy to compromise. Without a partner, you will fall. I don’t care who you are. You need someone who will give you a swift kick in the rear if that is what you really need. A partner will keep you honest.
This is what I do for my coaching clients. I am not there to be a friend. Sure, I can be their friend, as I certainly care for my clients. But just being another friend is not my purpose (there’s that word again). As a coach, I am there to help them achieve their goals. I am there to help them establish the purpose behind their goal. I am there to help them put together a plan to achieve that goal. And – I am there to partner up with them and hold them accountable to what they desire. I give my clients results. That is why you need a partner if you really want to achieve your goals.
So what is your goal? What’s your purpose behind it? How do you plan to do it? And who are you going to partner up with to make sure you get there?
Erik Akutagawa has been training in the martial arts for over 25 years and has 2 Black Belt world titles from the International Karate Championships.
An engineering graduate from UCLA, he runs Victory Karate, a martial arts ministry in the Los Angeles area, and is a Performance Coach for Competitive Spirit, where he shares his championship martial arts experience with others. He is a martial arts consultant in the motion picture industry, and a published writer on Christian martial arts.
Erik and his wife, Linda, have one son, Grant, and one daughter, Faith. They reside in Culver City, California.
You can reach Erik at erik@competitivespirit.com .
