New Year, New Goals !

Have you ever sat into a car and just gone for a drive ? It’s nice every now and again but most times when we sit into a car we have a destination in mind and we go from A to B. Going through life in general or especially life as a cyclist without goals is like going through life just driving around with no fixed destination in mind.

Goals don’t always have to be complex. Driving from Clonmel to Dublin you don’t plan every turn in the road just one or two way points along the way, like I’ll go via Portlaoise or via Kilkenny. There really are just two main things that goals have to be and that’s clearly set and then written down. It really is important to write them down. Written goals are 95% more likely to be attained than goals that are thought up and remembered for a few days but which soon become fuzzy .

Many cyclists will set goals for particular races during the season. They then sit down with a calender and set the date of the race that they want to win as the start point to their training and racing programme and work back in 4 week blocks from there to the day they are now at. Some will use a coach to help with this process whilst others use google or just their own personal realm of experience.

It’s good to set goals slightly outside your comfort zone but also important to then set a few stepping goals along the way. Plenty of people in recent years set goals of making millions before actually figuring out how to make a fiver outside of their normal weekly wage first.

So tonight why not just take 10 minutes and ask yourself what you would REALLY like to achieve in 2013 and write it down. Don’t worry too much about the how yet, give yourself a week to break it down if necessary, just get wheel rolling and away you go.

Have a great 2013,

Barry