Celebrate All Goals, Big or Small!
“I want to get a pull-up.”
This is probably one of the top goals amongst the members of StoneAgeFuel.
When it comes to gymnastics and body weight strength, there’s no question getting your first pull-up is incredibly difficult and absolutely one of the most rewarding moments.
But sometimes by putting so much emphasis on such tangible milestones, we forget to celebrate the smaller personal bests—and the equally as important milestones—along the way.
These milestones are a stepping stone on the way to achieving your pull-up and give you something to look forward to as you move from one milestone to another and to your eventual pull-up or your long term goal.
Think about your pulling strength—your eventual road to a pull-up— as being on a 100-step staircase. In this way, pull-ups are simply just two other steps on the staircase, no less, or no more important, than the step before or the step after. Each step we take is a victory in our ultimate goal. For example one step might be being able to pull half way up the bar, another step might be being able to do 30 or more rows on the rings.
Using this analogy, let’s say a ring row with a perfectly horizontal body is step 25 on the staircase, while a pull-up is step 50, and 10 pull-ups is step 75, step 100 might even be to eventually do some chest to bar pull-ups!
In terms of the pulling strength you gain, going from step 49 to step 50 is the same as going from step 50 to 51 (where step 51 might mean you can do 2 consecutive pull-ups) yet we’re more likely to celebrate reaching step 50 than 51. I ask why. Why is getting a pull-up somehow more important than getting two pull-ups?
It comes down to ego and our perception of what is important and being aware of where you are at in your progressions of your fitness. It’s often easy to lose track of where we are at as we progress, because we forget all the progress we made before we got that big goal. Maybe even the gains start getting slower, but are still happening. Sometimes you have to take a step back and look at all your progress thus far.
But if you change the way you think about your pulling gains, and your fitness in general, to being a staircase you’re climbing, you will have way more to celebrate along the way. You also won’t get as frustrated and impatient waiting to reach step 50 because you’ll get enjoyment reaching step 46, 47, 48, and 49 as well.
My challenge to you:
Set 5 small goals along the way to your ultimate goal, and remember to pat yourself on the back when you reach them. These goals should be composed of very long term goals (1 year or more), 9, 6, 3 month and monthly goals.
Each time you achieve any of your goals give yourself a congratulatory high five and celebrate your success!
Because, you are awesome and if you are always telling yourself that then… You win!
