Goals

Until these last ten years or so I have never been much into setting goals for physical activity, but since I have been here in Vermont and especially since I have been into biking and swimming, I have found that making goals and writing them down daily really helps me.

But, by hard experience, I have learned to adapt goal-setting to the sort of person I am. Invariably if I rigidly set the goal too high, I immediately sabotage myself because if I can’t get some success, I give up completely. So, this is what I have worked out for me. I set a “between” goal.

Examples. My biking goal is to ride between 3 to 6 miles two to four days a week. In addition, I try for one longer ride, that is between 7 to 10 miles a week. Now, as you can see, I leave myself plenty of wiggle-room here. I can stop when I reach the low-end of the goal and orchestrate dancing in the street when I make or exceed the upper level. So far this week I have exceeded the number of short ride days, done 5 miles on all but one of these days, and done one 11 and a half mile longer distance trip.

The other part of this goal setting is to forgive myself when I stop being active. At the end of May I spent one week with a urinary tract infection, one week being lazy and three weeks entertaining company. It was VERY hard to start back, and to be absolutely truthful, I might not have done it if my partner hadn’t encouraged me and if I hadn’t reread the little note on my monitor which starts off “The review of research concludes that regular exercise is a viable, cost-effective treatment for mild to moderate depression…” When I stop being physically active, I slowly slip down the slippery slope to depression. It is that simple. And if I let myself slip too far, it is almost impossible for me to get back up again without an anti-depressant.