Big Goals

I have mentioned in past blogs about some podcasts I listen to.  When the calendar changed to a New Year, many of the podcasts talk about New Year’s resolutions, why they fail, and then they have an in-depth look at goal setting.  The discussions vary from celebrating the victory of ‘making your bed’, all the way to ‘why haven’t I made a millions dollars yet?’.

In my anal retentive over thinking of things, I have started to establish what I think I want my goals to be – of course I start with the basic concepts that are actually no further towards helping me figure out what the end result is – so, I think a goal should be measurable, understandable, and to an extent, accountable.

There are a few people who follow my mental health newsletter that I put out bi-weekly to whom this may sound a little familiar.  One of the topics in a recent newsletter was all about goals, goal setting and achievement of goals.  I reference the Andy Frisella podcast MFCEO. A particular MFCEO episode (setting goals) suggests that you make big, hairy, scary, and otherwise momentous goals so that you need to start doing something NOW in order to have any chance of success.

The other option could be that I follow the mantra of “small goals, which are easily achieved”.  Set a goal that takes a couple of hours (maybe a day or 2) of effort, give myself a month or more to achieve it…. seems kinda counter-productive.  Yet, a majority of people set, and fail to achieve, these small goals.  I get it; as I myself, am a master level, gold-plated, procrastinator (shock among the crowd – you can’t believe it – I know, it is quite a confession).  I included this video explanation about procrastination in my newsletter from TED talks.

Now everyone is wondering – Rob, do you have a point to all this?  To which I would reply – YES, have a goal that is measurable, understandable, and most of all, I can be held accountable.

I have stated that I have a desire to exceed last years riding total.  In the spirit of the MFCEO, I have decided that the goal I will set will be 20,000 kms.  It may not be a big challenge for many riders, but I think it is a bigger challenge for a cancer patient.  I achieved around 13,000 last year – surgeries, procedures and treatments sidelined me for a while.  But I have a plan…

Here is the outline:

Measurable – 0 to 20,000 kms, I can track my completion rate on the odometer of my bike.  Here is a photo of my starting point.  Maybe I will channel some of my Inner nerd and put up some Powerpoint presentations, graphs and the like. 

Understandable – this isn’t rocket surgery – I intend to ride 20,000 kms – which is 250 hours of seat time at an average speed of 80 km/h or 400 hours at 50 km/h.  400 hours at 8 hours a day is 50 days.  It is now April 8th, and I expect to ride until End of Sept (ish), which is about 175 days – so I need to ride at least 2 hours a day – EVERYDAY to achieve my goal – average speed dependant of course.  How is that for a challenge, knowing that I won’t be able to ride everyday…. But that is ok, I have some plans to make up the difference.

Ok – so maybe that explanation is a little confusing and not-so understandable.  Here is a different explanation:
20,000 kms in 175 days =  I must travel 114.25 kilometers A DAY (about 70 miles).  I know I won’t go for a ride everyday, because medical circumstances will prevent it, …. so that number can only get bigger.

Accountable – I started a new YouTube channel, and page on this website, for tracking the success and completion of this goal. I have also mentioned it on the new Welcome video (which I posted moments before I uploaded this post). I offer you the opportunity to follow me as I go, and if you think I am slipping or don’t have a plan – you can query me with a WTF.  I will update the page with odometer reading photos, videos, maps, etc and the YouTube channel will host the videos of where I went and what I am doing.  I have a few ideas for road trips – such as….. checking out the recommendations of Albertas best burgers as mentioned by Troy and Ang, the best roads they list, or other recommendations that might come my way.  This is all in addition to a few big rides around BC, Alberta and NWT.  So, I encourage each one of you to follow along, tell others and track me along this journey – I may post the SPOT tracks for some of the events, and the links.

Oh, still looking for a good group name for my riding companions, top of the leaderboard is “Rummies” and “M.O.A.”

Thanks for following along, and as always, commentary is appreciated.  Spread the word, subscribe to the new YouTube page, tell your friends and hopefully I will meet up with people along the way.  First round might be on me.