In Issue #1 I shared the first part of this story:

In February of 2012, just 13 months before my 40th birthday, I stepped on the scale and weighed a whopping 238.3 pounds. At 5’11” this weight put me squarely into the “morbidly obese” category. I was ashamed and embarrassed and knew that I had to do something to fix this problem. So I went to a coach and trainer friend of mine and said “I’d like to be in the best shape of my life by my 40th birthday” to which he promptly responded, “That’s impossible! At your weight and fitness level it will take three to five YEARS to even know what your body is possible of achieving”.

Here’s the rest of the story:
As I started the process of getting fit and eating right, my coach had me doing very basic things like walking every day, eating “clean”, and tracking my entire food intake. It was working well, but after a few months of this very routine program I started to get BRUTALLY BORED. I was seeing results, and making all of the progress that my coach had planned, but I didn’t feel like I was getting anywhere; that there was any REASON for this other than losing some pounds and feeling better. Great goals, sure, but nothing to get excited about.

And that’s where Robin came in.

Robin is a subscriber to this newsletter, a former client and current friend. When I told Robin about what I was trying to do and that I was getting bored with the program he simply said “You should do Leadville!” The Leadville Trail 100 mountain bike race (LT100) is one of the most well known races in the world. And it’s hard. First, it’s 104 miles long, not just 100…that extra four miles is pretty demotivating. Second, the race STARTS at 10,200 feet above sea level and then goes UP to 12,800 feet. Of the roughly 2000 people that start the race each year, only about 1200-1300 actually finish. It’s a BIG DEAL to finish this race at all, let alone finish well. This was MUCH MORE than lose weight and feel better. I wasn’t even sure that I could do it. So what did I say to Robin when he said “You should do Leadville?”

I said “ok”…

… and something awesome happened. Instead of simply doing my workouts and eating better, I started TRAINING for something. I had a goal that was bigger than I ever thought imaginable. I was going to try and finish “America’s Toughest Mountain Bike Race!” All of a sudden I wasn’t just some guy trudging through my workouts, I was a mountain bike racer! I felt a sense of purpose, focus and determination like I’d never felt before.

And I did it. Over the course of 2 years, I competed in over 15 different races, lost nearly 50 pounds and not only FINISHED the LT100 mountain bike race, but finished in the TOP HALF of the race! Setting a REALLY BIG GOAL was my key to getting into the best shape of my life.

So here’s why I want you to stop setting “attainable” goals and start setting goals that scare you:

You Work Harder – Setting really big goals forces us to tap into internal energy, motivation, and resources that we never knew we had access to before. The fear of failure further motivates us to work harder to avoid embarrassment. This is exciting and stimulates parts of our brain that we don’t typically exercise. The result of this stimulation is a new realization that we can do MORE than we ever though possible

You Expand Your Potential – The thing about setting and achieving really big goals is that this achievement sets you up to set EVEN BIGGER goals in the future. This expanded potential makes it seems as if anything is possible. Bigger goals mean that the future will be better than today. I finished the LT100 in 10:13:54. This qualified me for a pretty sweet belt buckle that you can only get if you finish in less than 12 hours…but if you finish in less than nine hours you get a sweet BIG belt buckle. Do you think that’s on my list of things to accomplish now?

You Achieve More – By setting easily attainable goals we avoid failure, but we never really know what we can achieve. How FAR we can go. Really big goals allow us to push beyond what we know we can do into areas that we’re unsure about. Accomplishment at whole new levels of challenge drives confidence, self-esteem and life satisfaction

So, the next time you’re thinking about setting a goal, I want to challenge you to think bigger. Instead of picking something that you KNOW you can attain, try for something that seems unattainable; something twice as big, or EVEN TEN TIMES as big as the initial goal that you were going to set. You commitment level will instantly increase and before you know it you’ll be accomplish things that you never thought were possible.