Goal Accountability Update - Putting Health First
October 23rd, 2007 by Liz Fuller
What an interesting week it has been! Last week I decided that I had been setting my goals all wrong.
Being a naturally ambitious person, setting goals around tasks, only fed my natural inclination to pack as many “to do’s” into my day as possible. Let’s face it, it really wasn’t much of a challenge for me to get a lot done.
What was a challenge for me, was taking the time to take care of my health - my “to be’s” if you will. I have a long history of “doing a lot” and sacrificing my health - sleep, eating patterns and exercise in order to get it done.
Recently, that had begun to catch up with me. This week I tried an experiment of just assuming the “to do’s” would get done and instead setting my goals around how I wanted “to be” - which was healthier. The results were interesting.
First, I succeeded in eating healthy foods and getting enough sleep. I’m still getting over my illness so I didn’t exercise as much as I intend to in the near future. But still, I definitely focused on “being” first, and “doing” second.
The result? I really couldn’t see much difference in the amount that I got done when I was working around the clock and this week when I was putting more boundaries around my work hours.
Could it have to do with Parkinson’s Law that “work expands to fill the time available for it”?
The other interesting thing was that I added two new clients this week - and they practically fell into my lap! It makes me wonder about the power of energy.
Since I was taking better care of my health - did I give off better energy that others were drawn to?
So, I’m enjoying this experiment. I certainly feel a lot better. And I’m going to continue it into next week.
How about you? Are you putting your health first and your business second? Or the other way around? What would it take for you to make yourself a priority?
For more on the power of energy in connecting with others, see:
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007 at 6:00 am and is filed under goal setting, motivation, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 29th, 2007 at 10:21 am
I am a little late getting to this post, but actually, the timing for me is perfect.
Can you elaborate some on what your goals were before and after you changed them? I think you are on to something that will be a great benefit to me, but I can’t yet wrap my mind around the whole concept.
October 29th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Hi April
Thanks for the great question. I’ll try to elaborate.
Previously I was setting my goals as a bit of a marathon - adding more and more tasks, taking on more and more challenges and putting all of my focus on energy on getting more and more done. I gave up sleep, ate on the run, and didn’t take time out to exercise. I figured that none of that was as important as getting more done.
Then, I got sick. And I observed something:
the world didn’t end with being out of commission for a few days - other people stepped in to do some of the things I had on my list, and other tasks didn’t get done - but it didn’t seem to matter all that much
So then I wondered what the point was of trying to do more and more and more - where was the end and what was the prize?
I realized that there was no challenge for me in getting more done - I’m a very driven person - the challenge for me was in putting boundaries around my commitments - in order to lead a healthier life.
To my surprise - when I started enforcing some boundaries by getting more sleep, taking time to eat right and even exercise - I still managed to get just about as much done - and in some cases more because I felt better and had more energy.
If you are someone like me - naturally ambitious and achievement oriented - then you might find this sequence of goal setting to be more challenging and more powerful for you!
whew - that’s a lot! feel free to contact me directly if you want via email:
liz (at) morethanweknow (dot) com