Setting goals or not, who we are each day is what matters. Goals are great tools to get where we want to be, because they can help us become who we want to be. With goals in mind:
We become an early riser or become better with food choices.
We become the type of person that prioritizes sleep and training.
We write in our journal not just to finish it, but to become the type of person who routinely gets our thoughts down and out of our head.
Whether a tournament or anticipation of a rigorous belt ceremony, upcoming wedding party photos or a job promotion or marathon. Setting the event and working towards it, we work on ourselves and the people we become along the journey towards it.
Our goal may not be realized the way we intended, we may lose the fight or miss the milestone or something got canceled. But these weren’t in our control anyway. What is in our control is who we became leading up to it. Our actions and habits leading up to it is who we are, if even for only that time leading up to it.
Some of these habits can continue after, as we grow to appreciate the new version of ourselves and want to keep that going. Others might be dropped, they were either unsustainable with the rest of our life balance, or found it just wasn’t the us we wanted to be. Either way, we were brave and focused to become who we were for that time even if we choose not to continue as that version of ourselves.
Whatever the results, choosing goals should have us choosing who we want to become to best achieve them. We know results are outside our control but who we become to pursue them is.
Journey over destination.
Better training over belt color.
Healthier eating over numbers on a scale.
A better us over the milestone or achievement or photo that represents it.
We don’t particularly need goals to make improvements, sometimes the improvements that make the new you is the goal, tangible or otherwise. But if we do choose a goal or milestone, our personal improvements should be our why for choosing them. Achievement of anything is never fully up to us, but who we become in pursuit of them is.