Have You Set Your Goals For 2023?

Your Goals For 2023…

Have you set yourself any goals for 2023? Here’s a few of mine.

1. Grow Velocity Life and Fitness.
2. Travel and do 5 Motivational talks at big events.
3. Spend more time with friends & family.
4. Get a 30 second freestanding handstand.
5. Improve my Spanish skills.
6. Improve my Guitar Playing.
7. Achieve a Training Goal I haven’t done before (2022 was the Duathlon).

To be honest, they’re all pretty generic, right?

More time spent here, more growth here, achieve that, get better at this. *Insert eyeroll here*

Maybe you don’t have the exact same goals as me, but I’m certain you could fill in your own version of Travel, Business, Family & Handstands and it’ll be essentially identical to mine.

“Get leaner”
“Build more muscle mass”
“Be more confident”
“Make more money”
“Get that new job”
“Have better relationships”
“Be Happier”

It’s all pretty familiar.

Here’s the other thing we share in common.

We’re going to fuck it all up. We’re probably going to fail at each and every one of those goals.

There’s two reasons why.

First, we’re DEFINITELY going to fail at these goals as long as they remain static, open-ended goals like that.

I mean, what does it mean to really ‘Grow’ Velocity Life and Fitness?

If the business doubled in size and revenue, have I achieved my goal? What if the business increased by simply .00001% – that’s growth too, right?

Same goes for Spending more time with Family –

If I spent an extra hour with my family, that counts, right? And if I learned one new Spanish word over the entire year, I’ve technically improved.

But we both know I’m going to look back in a year’s time at that, be disappointed, and set out another whimsical goal for 2024 in a years’ time.

I’m sure it’s sounding pretty familiar to you.

So, it’s time to break that cycle.

Instead of outcome goals, break it down into Actionable Habits. This is what I work on Daily with the people with my client community.

It’s not enough to say you want to Get Leaner or become Happier. Break it down to the simplest, Actionable Habit, and then we’ll get to the Second Part.

Losing 10kgs/25lbs is a bit clearer than getting leaner. So that’s good. But it still doesn’t give you anything tangible to work on…… Saying I want to work on my fear of failure, that’s also good. Again, you look at it and go how!?

How about “Eating more protein”?

It’s a step in the right direction. – but it’s the same as me saying ‘Spend more time with Family’ – 10 extra grams counts, right?

How about “Track and aim to eat within 5g of my macronutrient and calorie targets given to me by Baz”?

Sounds better, but it’s still pretty shit.

You see, in order to actualise your goals – you need to truly BECOME the person who is deserving of those goals.

Want to get leaner? Want to release the Fear of Failure?

You don’t just need to stick to a plan through sheer determination and power of will. You need to evolve over time. To becoming better than your best version of yourself* and become that person who knows how to manage their schedule, grocery shopping, food preparation, cooking skills, relationships and lifestyles around that overall goal.

That sounds a lot fucking harder now, doesn’t it?

OK, LET’S LOOK SPECIFICALLY ON NUTRITION

What’s the point in getting within 5g of your macronutrient goals if you

a) Have no idea what a fucking macronutrient is, b) Have no idea how to cook anything, and

c) It means you have to alienate yourself from all of your friends, family and social activities?

So maybe the first step to you getting leaner ISN’T about any of those directives and it’s especially not about the Outcome Based Goal of “Getting Leaner”. Maybe your goals should be focusing more on actionable habits like the following –

– Learn basic knife and cooking skills by watching tutorials on YouTube and practicing each day. Actionable habit – Learn a new skill each week (eg chopping, stir frying, salads, oven baking) and practice it daily. This also requires you scheduling in 1 meal per day where you will have the time set aside to prepare this meal to hone the skill.

– Schedule 3 blocks in a week where you can a) Plan the next meals you’re going to work on from Habit 1, and b) actually go to the shops and get what you need.

See the difference? Of course, your actionable habits may be very different, as will your goals.

So, here’s a vastly different example using the same framework – Spending more time with my friends and family.

The question you have to start asking yourself is not – “How do I get to spend more time with them”?

Rather, it’s “How do I BECOME the person who spends more time with my friends and family?”

Because again, there’s no point spending an extra 5 hours a week or day with them, if all I’m thinking of when I’m there is being elsewhere, or being stressed about the work that’s piling up, or wanting to spend that time doing my own thing – reading, playing guitar, playing video games or scrolling on Instagram.

So, what do I have to do?

I need to become someone who is more deeply connected with my friends and family, so I’ll find it far easier to prioritise them above other aspects of my life, like work.

I need to become someone who is less attached to my work, and who has strategies for calming myself and switching off when appropriate, so I can enjoy my leisure time.

I need to become someone who keeps a better schedule and holds themselves accountable to it, with balancing my personal leisure time, work and socialising times.

This is where you need to dig deep and get real about what you really want, and what are you really willing to do to get after it.

Are you willing to create a schedule and hold yourself to it?

Are you willing to invest yourself into mindfulness practices to help you manage stress and your mental state better?

Are you willing to be the one who puts themselves out there to reach out to friends and family, have tough conversations when needed and be truly vulnerable to connecting with them?

That last one probably tripped you up a little, right?

It’s scary. It’s tough. But it’s effective.

So, what’s my daily actionable habit for that Outcome Goal?

For me, I’m starting small – I’ve made a list of the 5 most important people to me, and I am making it a habit to communicate with them in some way each day.

It can be a quick text. A short phone call. A catch up and walk. A dinner out, or simply sharing a meme with them. It doesn’t sound like much, but for me it’s a big step. Just like I take knife skills for granted, I know many people take these sorts of things for granted too – but wholehearted relationships and quality time doesn’t come from forcing more quantity of time – it comes from the small, daily actions that you put into them each day.

There are days where I’m not going to feel up to it. There are days where I’m going to feel like I should focus on my work or ‘me time’ instead. There are days where I’m going to feel like I’m going through the motions, and just ‘faking it’.

But as long as I can check off that Actionable Habit each day, I’ll know I’m laying the foundation towards becoming that person I want to be.

I mentioned earlier that there’s two reasons, right? This one is long enough, right? but if you haven’t already, check out my blog on ‘Why We fail’. Maybe next time