Sticking to your goals

In my Taekwondo class there is a big sign at the front of the room that says ‘This is a Black Belt Class’. The first time I entered the room for my introductory class, that sign scared the hell out of me. There I was, in my crisp white uniform, trying to look good, and all I could see were those words up there, intimidating me.

It was not until a few months later that I realised they were there to dare me, to inspire me.

Martial arts is all about goal-setting, and the single-mindedness it takes to reach a goal.
Once I started setting targets for myself in Taekwondo, the way to meet those targets became immediately clear. Just keep going. The discipline requires you to practise regularly, to not waver, and to keep going until you have reached your goal.

And I can say now, with pride, that I am a black belt in Taekwondo. Furthermore, I can also say that I have fallen over a thousand times, I have hurt parts of my body I didn’t even know existed, and I can’t even count the number of times I have wanted to miss a class due to fatigue or lack of motivation.

But I am still a black belt. And that is entirely down to persistence and commitment. No human body is naturally predisposed to Taekwondo, and it requires training. When I started I was definitely not predisposed to it. However, my teacher kept pushing me, kept reminding me of my goals, and would not let me be negative. I would become a black belt, I would.

In fact anyone can become a black belt in a martial art; the only differing factor is time. If you are committed to it, then you will reach that goal, in other words.

This has a lot to do with other goals in your life. I have recently started introducing some light exercise into my early morning routine. Fifty sit ups. The way I did this was I signed up to something called Life Tango, and used their goal setting software to set myself a goal of doing fifty sit ups, every day, within a month.

I started at thirty, worked up to thirty five, and then forty. And at one point I checked in on Life Tango and realised that I had been regularly exercising every day for two weeks. Just like that.

It was on that day that I did my first set of fifty. Now, I can happily report that I have recorded on Life Tango the completion of that goal.

So what’s my point? Well, as it was with Taekwondo and the sit ups, virtually any goal you want to set can be reached. When I saw that I had completed on the sit ups, I was quite taken aback. This is because prior to the goal setting that led to the goal completion, I had made excuses. All I had done when it came to that kind of exercise is make excuses about time, about energy, and about skill. I hadn’t got down and just done some sit ups!

Goal setting and goal achievement are all about saying you will do something, working out a simple plan, and then sticking to it. If the plan has to change a little, change it. It is still a plan for a goal that you have expressed a desire to meet.

And the confidence that I have achieved after doing those fifty sit ups, and making that black belt, propels me to new goals, new achievements. I now need new challenges.

And every time I set a challenge, that little voice that says it can’t be done is a little quieter. This is because I have the knowledge that comes with knowing that if I set a goal I can reach it.
In fact, when you think about it, any goal can be reached, as long as you put the work in. My taekwondo teacher made this abundantly clear, when he was asked, one lesson, to answer the question ‘what is a black belt’.

All he said was, ‘a black belt is the person in the room who has fallen flat on their face the most times.’

If you ever wanted a definition of goal commitment, that’s it right there.