It is January 12th, 2021. How are you doing with your New Year’s resolution? After only 12 days, some might be thriving, some might have thrown in the towel already, and others might have falling off the rails but are committed to continue trying. Maybe you’ve hit your 0.08 and are desperately searching for that second wind, as Dave Burgess shares in his post Second Wind (if you haven’t read this post, do yourself a favour and read it now).

I’ve often found myself searching for that second wind, and in retrospect, getting the results I want seem to come down to two things: making space and creating manageable goals.

Making Space

If you believe that you are going to create new habits, goals, and eventually attain results by simply adding to your regular routine, you are setting yourself up for failure. “When I have the time” is a dangerous phrase… we never have enough time. Making time, not finding the time is key. And sometimes, making the time means letting go of other things to make room for what you deem important.

When I was training for my half marathon, I would wake up early in the morning, even on weekends, just to bang out my runs. Instead of waking up and scrolling through social media before getting out of bed, I would get out of bed right away and scroll through social media AFTER my run while I was stretching. Genius right? I am sure that if I had not created that time to run in the morning, I would have never achieved my running goals, both big and small!

When it comes to blogging, for a long period of time I had committed to posting every single week (I’m not following that rigid schedule right now for reasons I explain in my post Energy is Currency). Again, I specifically carved out time every single weekend to write, in order to make sure that I had something ready to go for the following Tuesday. I didn’t “fit it in”, I decided when my writing time would be, and the placed my other to-do items around it. I will admit though, that with four boys and tons of hockey, my writing time did have to be worked around their schedules, but I always made it work… I simply mean that the laundry, cleaning, or other activities on my list came after my writing was scheduled.

Creating Manageable Goals

It’s okay to have big shiny goals. It’s also okay to not have big shiny goals. For me personally, big shiny goals scare me, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I definitely need to work my way up to them. Sometimes, often even, I typically start creating a habit by making time in my schedule. Once I see that I am doing not so bad and have built confidence, (“Oh, I can do this!!”), it’s easier for me to decide on manageable goals that eventually lead to shiny goals, and ultimately, big results.

I started running by being committed to 10 minutes a day and not missing two days in a row. Eventually, I worked my way up to 5kms, and then 10kms… and only then did I feel confident enough to say out loud that I wanted to run a half marathon (and did). Small manageable goals.

My blog evolved in the same kind of way. I set it up after signing up for #IMMOOC (the Innovator’s Mindset Massive Open Online Course). Once I wrote a few posts, I realized that my love of writing went beyond simply writing monthly e-mails updating family and friends on my boys’ growth. At first, I was simply writing when inspiration hit, but eventually worked my way up to a more consistent schedule. And here I am, 4.5 years later, and still writing. Small manageable goals.

My Latest Small Win

After a bit of time passed, and I recovered mentally from my half marathon (read about that journey here), I decided that I’d love to run another half but to finish in under 2 hours. With this next goal in mind, I knew that I had to change up my training schedule which needed to focus on strength training. I broke it up into manageable goals, sought out the help of an athletic therapist, and was on my way with 3 workouts and one run to do per week. I started this in December and have been loving it so far! Then, on January 2nd, I saw a tweet by Tim Cavey inviting educators to participate in his 10,000 push-ups in 2021 challenge! I was IN! Another goal weaved into my strength training that will hopefully lead to a better half marathon time.

All right, educators. Who’s up for the 10,000 push-up challenge this year? We’ll need to average 28 per day and track our progress together.

— 🔥Teachers On Fire Podcast (@TeachersOnFire) January 1, 2021

Bonus points… it was already broken down into small manageable goals… 28 push-ups a day? I can do that! Well, I know it’s only day 12, but I literally started my push-ups by doing them on an incline, and three sets of 10 (gotta start somewhere!). Then, I eventually worked my way up to doing regular push-ups until I couldn’t and then switched to half push-ups (from on my knees) — for example, 4 regular push-ups, and 6 half push-ups, x3 sets. Well, this morning, I still did three sets of 10, but ALL my push-ups were regular push-ups! No incline. No halves! Woohoo! It’s important to celebrate the small goals! They lead to big results!

---

It is January 12th, 2021. How are you doing with your New Year’s resolution? How are you making space? What small manageable goals are you working on right now? What can you celebrate today?

Here’s your second wind… you’ve got this!