That Feeling You Get

I love working on goals. Over the years I have set some pretty big goals for myself. As I set them, I feel so much excitement when I think of accomplishing them. Setting goals and achieving goals are the fun parts for me. The parts in between, not so much.

A few years ago, my friend and I set a goal to compete in our first Triathlon. It involved swimming, biking, and running. We had both been biking for years and I knew that that would be the easy part. She ran regularly, even ran a marathon. Not me. She was a much better swimmer than I was, too. But we decided that these 40+ year old women were going to accomplish something big, something we thought we would never do. We began planning.

Executing the plan wasn’t always fun. We met up three times a week to run, bike, or swim together. On the other days we trained alone. Waking up at 4:30am to run during the summer was the only way to avoid the heat of the Arizona sun. That was hard. Swimming for a half-hour straight felt refreshing, but it was a lot of work, and not my strong suit. That was hard. Biking was the easy part. Fixing flat tires on the side of the path/road was neither fun nor easy. But we kept our eye on our goal.

A few months before the Triathlon we were involved in a bike accident. This was not fun nor easy. We had to make a choice whether to give up on the goal we had set, or just postpone it another year. We decided that we would keep going and compete the following year. It was disappointing. It was frustrating. It was all of it. Be we kept going.

Finally, the day of the triathlon came. We were prepared, and we were nervous. I felt completely out of my element and had so many thoughts telling me that I was crazy for even thinking I could do this in the first place.

The beginning of the race was rough for me. And I could have easily quit. But there was no way I was giving up this close to achieving my goal, even if I was the last to cross the finish line. (Which looked like a very real possibility at that point).

As we both ran closer to the finish line, I remember a flood of exhilaration washing over me. The goal we had worked so hard on for so long was finally being reached! We had made it! Our plan, hard work, setbacks, and everything in between made it possible to accomplish something we never dreamed of doing.

And the feeling of crossing that finish line was amazing!

Since then, I have set and achieved other goals; some big, and some small. They all follow the same pattern of planning, hard work, disappointments and even frustration. But it’s the feeling I get when I accomplish a goal that keeps me setting more. I can't wait to see what's next!