Ok, so, now we’re getting serious.

Medium-term goals and short-term goals are very different animals. Well, yeah, they take longer! Duh! Ok, smart Alec… it’s not just that. The biggest difference with medium-term goals is that the payoff, the reward, is not instantly visible.

What does that mean psychologically?

Well, some people call it belief, some people call it faith, some persistence… but you’re gonna have to keep going, when things are difficult, and you can’t see any results yet. It’s very easy to give up.

As we’re starting to get into the big leagues now, this topic will have 2 examples.

1. A BodyBuilding or Fitness Program
2. A weight-loss program

We will talk about these together, rather than making each one a thing… but you can probably start to see why I use these as examples. They take a while.

It starts with an idea – Is it yours or theirs?

Same as before, it starts with an idea. This idea will either be formed due to:

Necessity
Your doctor says you need to lose weight or you will die

or

Desire
I want to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger and get all the babes

Either way… you form the idea, you agree it’s a good one, you define the parameters, set a time limit, make a plan, and start on your quest.

It takes time

The problem is, it doesn’t happen overnight. It seems like you’re actually going backward. To grow muscle you first need to tear it. Rip it. It’s the only way that the muscle knows it needs to become stronger to fulfill the demands you put on it. And that hurts. After your first session, you’ll be in pain, maybe for 3 or 4 days after. You need a pretty strong reason to keep going when you’re in so much pain.

Just keep looking at the picture of Arnie in his Speedos, surrounded by supermodels… one more set, you can do it.

This also requires dieting but for weight gain and muscle growth. It’s very specific. You need various proteins and minerals to promote healthy muscle growth but have to control certain types of fats. You need to take in more calories than you use, and that’s a lot of calories when you’re working your ass off… It’s complicated.

With dieting for weight loss, guess what… you’re gonna get hungry. It hurts. It’s like a drug that you crave, you can’t live without it. You can eat… just make it lettuce rather than doughnuts. Drink water rather than Coke. Burn more calories than you take in… move around a bit more than you’re used to…
it sounds easy, doesn’t it?

And it is.

But your brain won’t tell you that. No, every single thought you have will be about doughnuts, twinkies, pizzas, and gallons of Mountain Dew. It will be torture. But would you rather be dead? Really? No, I didn’t think so. It’s not easy, but it’s not impossible either. Just think about how it will feel when you can walk around the block without needing a stroller… whatever your situation… focus on the goal. See it. Imagine it.

It’s All Relative(s)

This is where another major difference comes into play. Because it takes so long, and your lifestyle will change dramatically once you start on the journey, other people will notice. Whether you like it or not they will influence you. This may sound negative, ok, here we go again… but people aren’t very nice sometimes. They want you to get ahead, but not so far that you start to make them look bad.

It’s all relative, and most likely it will start with your relatives.

You’ll get advice left and right about playing it safe, horror stories about people on steroids, and flappy skin. Oh, you look ok as you are, I wouldn’t change you for the world.

Unfortunately, a side effect of setting a goal that effects serious change in your life will also change the way you see some of the people around you. You start to understand that not everyone has your best interests at heart, oh they do, but only as long as it doesn’t relatively adversely affect them.

You get past this by focusing on your big goal, and the daily tasks you need to accomplish to keep you moving forwards. Check your map, often.

You’re Gonna Need Help

As these are bigger, more complicated goals, and specifically as they are both related to physical health… you’re definitely gonna need some help. Your doctor or dietician will help you make the plans. They will reinforce your own goal-setting efforts with correctional advice here and there, so flexibility is particularly important here. There are also so many different elements to this, much more fundamental than onions and noodles.

Both require a change in diet. That takes a lot of planning in itself. Getting help here can also take 2 paths… you can research it yourself online and make the best guess… or you can get some professional help. Sometimes you may need to pay for that help, sometimes not… depending on the specifics of your goal. I mention this a lot. But hey, you can cheat. Everybody does. We all like to look for the sneaky ways around paying for things, to get the most bang for our buck.

But you need to understand FALSE ECONOMY. This is when you find the perfect thing for $100, then you decide you want to shop around. You find a similar thing for $50, less quality but says it performs the same task. Then 1 week later the cheaper thing breaks and you end up going back to buy the first thing you saw. Now you’ve spent $150 dollars to get what you should have just bought initially for $100. You don’t get something for nothing… and buying good quality normally pays off in the long run.

Focus on the Big Picture

Both of them require a program of physical fitness. Activities you need to perform. But this is a good thing. Activities and weight, reps, steps, and times are all parameters we can put into a spreadsheet. We put the numbers into our sheet every day, draw some colorful lines on a chart, we see progress over time.

Did you get that? Over time. It doesn’t happen immediately. We correct and adjust the plan as necessary. Step-by-step.

When I was a very young boy in school my teacher asked a question. He held up a piece of writing paper and he asked me, Does this paper have a thickness?

I was young, I couldn’t imagine a measurement so small being significant, so I answered in the negative, thus demonstrating MY thickness.

He then pulled out a ream of A4 paper and showed me how all those tiny thicknesses added up to something I could relate to.

The penny dropped. Aaaaahhh now I get it.

Yes. I think you do.

Goal Setting Worksheet

Will be linked here eventually… we’ve got the builders in.

As findmycave.com is a website about making money, I guess that’s at least one of the things you’re looking for. As you work through the attached worksheets the reasons for actually doing something will start to appear. This becomes your reason why… then, depending on the scope of your big plans… as we go along we will get into the various ways of finding out HOW we can achieve the things you want.

Together…