BHAGs: Big Hairy Audacious Goals

It's been 2 months since I declared I would attempt a triathlon. At the time, I was seriously wondering if I could learn how to swim in open water non-stop for a quarter mile. But, I knew that I just had to go ahead and sign up and declare that I would do it -- and figure it out as I went along.

Many people to whom I've announced this endeavor, would classify it as a BHAG - a Big Hairy Audacious Goal, a term coined by the famous business author James Collins. BHAGs are meant to be visionary goals that are emotionally compelling. My daily and weekly goals are pretty simple -- just keep trying to do better each time. I'm amazed how much progress I've made in just 2 months using both of these goal setting techniques -- here's a recap.

SWIM: I've been putting the most effort here since it's my weakest sport. I've been trying to swim 4 days a week. My workout log shows that I have swam approximately 11,800 yards and over 15 hours over the last 2 months -- if my pool math is correct, that's over 6.5 miles. My inability to do pool math though started with my original miscalculation on what a quarter mile would be, and it continued last month when I declared that my goal for the month was to be able to swim 200 yards freestyle non-stop. Afterwards, I realized that I meant to state 100 yards -- at the time, it seemed like such a huge endeavor, especially given a month cut short by a few days! I decided not to change the blog post and to keep the BHAG for the month. And guess what -- by mid-month, I was swimming 100 yards non-stop. On February 28 I swam 150 yards non-stop and March 5 (yesterday), I swam 200 yards non-stop! I had my third swimming lesson today and Matt called my progress "amazing".

BIKE: I've spent over 4.5 hours biking 60 miles on the gym stationary bike. In the summer months, I often bike that much just in one weekend. In training now, I'm focusing more on maintaining my speed - RPMs - to be 90 or above. On January 15, I recorded a time 47:38. On March 5, I had shaved 10 minutes off of my time coming in at 37:38.

RUN: And in running 2 miles on the treadmill, I've totaled over 19 miles and also have been focusing on speed. I've managed to shave off over 6 minutes on my time - from 24:23 on Jan. 18 to 18:17 on March 4.

So, for me, goal setting is about setting those BHAGs that just may get you to go farther or faster than you ever imagined as well as just getting out there every day and week and saying, "I'm just going to keep trying to do better than the last time."