Set The Bar High and Scissor Kick Failure in the Face

So I was having a conversation with a trainer I work with yesterday, and the point of goal setting for the coming month came up. Now I know there’s a lot of people out there who think trainers are merely hired goons who get paid a flat salary by the gyms we work at to make our patrons swole and jacked and dieseled out like crazy, but we’re actually all our own business entities operating under one umbrella organization. As a result, numbers are kinda important. Like, if you don’t have any new business or recurring business, you’re out of business and the bank will take back your Wii Fit and espresso machine.

She wanted to see some improvement in her numbers by a small amount. I told her to quit being such a pansy set her sights a little higher and blow it out of the water. She responded by saying she didn’t want to fail because if she didn’t hit those high numbers, she would feel defeated.

Here’s the kicker. Let’s say she were to go all in and really give it her max effort to get to the big goal, whether it was sales, sessions trained, new clients, whatever. If her big goal was to get 10 new clients this month and she wound up getting 4, she would still have 4 new clients she didn’t have the previous month. If she was training 60 sessions a month and her big goal was to hit 100 sessions and she only managed 81, she would still be ahead.

But what if she actually hit the big goal?? Wouldn’t that be un-freakin-believable??

How many people hold back because they don’t want to fall short of a goal and feel defeated, even if achieving the goal itself is a secondary concern to what is achieved in the process?

Here’s a common thought process that leads innumerable people to crap their proverbial bed and sell themselves short on everything in their lives. Failure isn’t merely an option: it’s inevitable. Woke up this morning? You failed at sleeping in. Forgot to hit your turn signal when merging? Driving fail. Missed your bus? Mass transit fail. Forgot someone’s name? Didn’t pack enough food? Called Scarlet Johansson Kate Beckinsale? Fail, fail, EPIC FAIL!!

You’re gonna fail, so get over it. Just ask any girl I asked out in high school and they’ll tell you how I failed. If I would have given up trying, I would have been the inspiration for the 40 Year Old Virgin instead of marrying a smokin hot gal.

If people were scared of failing enough not to shoot for the stars, we would still have cell phones that would only make phone calls, no one would move out of their parents basements, McDonalds wouldn’t have decided to make crap-tastic food that would addict the world, and someone would have decided that it wouldn’t be such a good idea of turning their office chair into a rolling death machine by throwing some sweet tank tracks on the sides of it!! “This chair just makes me want to nuke the accounting department so freakin badly!! Put THIS in your inbox you son of a bitch!!!!” 

Bad ideas are only bad if they don’t become a reality, so make some bad decisions and take a risk, dammit!! Let’s take this concept to the gym floor. If you decide that you don’t want to actually take a goal by the horns and ride the hell out of that sucker, then you’re never going to see any change in your appearance, strength or any other goal you want to get. You’ll continue doing 60 minute stints on the elliptical at level 6 while burning 342 calories, curling the 5 pound dumbells and avoiding barbells like they got a touch of the clap. Pro athletes don’t get to the big leagues by doing just enough to get by, and neither should you.

Let’s consider someone wanting to get their deadlift up to 500 pounds. If they started at 300 pounds, it would seem like a long shot for sure, but if they set the goal, and worked their ass off to get there, they would get to 350, 400, and possibly even 450. If they didn’t get to 500, they would still be waaaay ahead of where they started, which means they would have failed for the big goal, but I’m sure they wouldn’t feel to shabby about pulling 450 like a boss.

This also gives incentive to continue to work towards a massive goal. Ever set a low goal, then achieve it, and wonder what the hell to do with the rest of your life? I’ve been there, and it sucks holy hell. A big goal can be something you work towards in sort of a career-mode fashion, chipping away at it over time and focusing all your energy on building the necessary steps to get there, or you could go all single-game record and work for a short-term goal that can make you look like a superstar. Either way, you’ll make some head way and get a chance to wear your own champ belt, you know, because you’re a champ.

A little goal requires little effort, which means you have the ability to sleep on it and it will probably happen. That may make you feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside, sort of like when you entered into the “everyone gets a ribbon” tournament of “whateverthehell,” but history doesn’t remember the average or those who achieve small victories. Sure, the small victories all add up eventually, but they better add up to one big honkin raging victorious goal that has some sort of massive emotional attachment for you on par with this guys victory dance over winning a single point in table tennis.

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So what’s the point of all these important points of light? Set the bar high, and bust your ass to get there. Don’t settle for aiming low, because that’s what everyone else does. Being exceptional means trying harder, working smarter, and having a bigger desire to change the world than anyone else around, and having the cojones to get the job done one way or another. Don’t even bother using the old “I don’t know how to do that” excuse, because there are books, courses, websites, DVDs, and literally hundreds of people who have probably done what you want to do and would be more than happy to assist you in doing it, some for a cost and some for free. Reach out and ask a question to figure it out because what you don’t know can definitely hurt you.

Look at the people you admire the most in the world or in any specific industry. Guaranteed Steve Jobs wasn’t sitting there thinking “I don’t know if anyone will go for this whole “mobile music” thing or this touch screen thingy.” Set the bar high, freak yourself out, work your ass off, and change the world, all before dinner.