Goals – How to aim high and recognize success

Dear coaches,
I have set myself the following spring goal: Create a *balance* between my three important life areas and progress in all of them, all while coming from a place of self-love. The areas are a)relationships (with partner and close friends) b) training progress and c) Master studies.
I love my goal and I am looking forward to pursuing it. The struggle I have is this: How do I know that I have met it? And how do I know how much ‘progress’ is possible? (I can answer right here for myself: Only by courageous trying…)
I have been thinking about making a more “detailed plan” in each area with bullet points or questions that tell me whether I have met this part-goal or not. But on the other hand side I don’t want to be perfectionistic with that, as my MAIN goal is to create a “balance” and that might mean I can NOT meet these bullet points in one area, because it might be neccessary to create a disbalance in the others. For example, if I want to meet a specific training goal, but university demands are high, I might have to scale the training down if I want to keep showing up in the way I want in my studies.
Actually, while writing this, I notice that I still have some of the belief that it is not possible to ‘have it all’ and that I am aiming too high. I will include a model about that: C: I have set my goal (see above) T: It is not possible for me to have it all. I am aiming too high. E: Discouraged. A: Keep myself down. Tell myself at least one life-area will suffer. If challenges/obstacles come, I think: “I knew it” and do not try to overcome it. I unconsciously already decide which part of the goal I want to let slip through. I don’t push actively to create results in all areas. R: There is not going to be balance and progress in all areas. I will not “have it all”, because I am self-sabotaging.

So in this is already some selfcoaching, but I am still looking forward to some help with changing my belief – and also about how to actually know/decide when I have met my goal. Thank you!

Answer:

Thank you for bringing not only this question but your astute self-awareness and insightful self-coaching to AAC. I hope you can recognize your self-coaching skills.

Some good questions to ask yourself are: What does balance mean to you? Could you describe what the future balanced version of you thinks, feels, and does? Take note of what you notice and whether there are any parallels to being perfect. If there are, that’s okay…just go back to the drawing board and tweak your definition and vision a little to make room for your beautiful humanness.

This leads to my next question: What if finding balanced growth with these three priorities actually is allowing for one area to have a slower week so another can get the lion’s share of attention? In physical training, there are built in plateau weeks where you let your body rest at its new normal – how could allowing yourself to have plateau weeks with university, physical health, and relationships be an indispensable part of making progress? What thoughts come up for you as you consider the answer? Come back for more coaching!