Goal setting: Focus how much in the future?

[Phoenix]

So how do you guys plan your life?

I know, this is a huge question with too many variables.....but still...what do you sit down and think of?

When I plan out- I often end up planning (setting goals) that span the liftetime.

E.g.: It's not enough for me to write "Do kettlebell swings 3/week for 6 weeks"

NO! I have to be more grandiose about it and look at how I can include kettlebell workouts in the next few weeks because in a few years I should be competing in Girevoy Sport or go for an RKC evaluation.

Now that I think of it as I'm typing this- it's not a problem with goal setting as much as it is with the being here and now.

In fact..I just changed the title. Intially when I started typing this I called this " So how do you guys plan your life?"

[andygates]

I don't really get motivated until the one-month-to-go dread hits, so that's my kind of timescale. I'll procrastinate until then. Cunning planning means that by breaking large goals down into 4-6 week chunks, I can do big things sometimes.

[MoFro]

It's a good idea to set a long term goal, and then based on that goal write goals in between now and then that'll get you where you want to be. So if you're a couch potato right now and your long-term goal is "qualify for the Boston Marathon" and you know that the qualifying time is 3 hours 30 minutes, maybe you might set goals in between like "run a 10k in under 1 hour", "run a half-marathon in under 2 hours", "run a marathon in under 4 hours 30 minutes" etc.

That way you can still have great long term goals and you also have a plan of action to achieve them.

[LRB]

What MoFro said. Let's say I want to be able to do a flag some day (in the distant future). That requires a lot of strength. My strength is particularly lacking in my upper body. So I need to work on upper-body strength. So I set a goal of doing a dead-hang pull-up (easier to accomplish than a flag, but still a pretty lofty goal) and work toward that. In setting that goal, I break it down even further -- do an assisted pull-up with a smaller band by the end of the week; do 100 pull-ups with the smaller band over the course of the next week; go down another band size the following week; and so on. So, while I still have this audacious goal out there in the distant future (do a flag), I have shorter term goals that are more easily accomplished from where I am today.

Make sense?