Be Your Best

Todd Gifford - Success Coach

In the past 45 days, I decided that I was going to take a step towards achieving a life/dream goal (on my ‘bucket list’) of finishing the Iron Man Triathlon, held each year on the Big Island of Hawaii.  Not sure if I will ever complete that dream goal — it is an insane event where you Swim 2.4 miles in open water, followed by a 110 mile bicycle race, followed yet by a 26.2 mile running marathon, all in one continuous event.  Honestly, this is something that I have wanted to complete just once in my lifetime since I was very young and would see the Ironman covered on TV each year.  Kind of like the ultimate athletic/fitness achievement that I could probably ever attain.  However, I have never seriously even attempted to move toward that goal until about a month ago.  Around my birthday last month, I was reviewing my bucket list and started to feel that time was slipping away on a number of things on my list, so I guess that got me motivated.  Each year that rolls by its going to be harder and harder to do this triathlon thing.

The Ironman event is a pretty intimidating goal.  It seems nearly unachievable to me despite seeing some ‘normal’ people complete the event on TV (although they do look like a heavy toll has been taken on them as they cross the finish line — the ‘price’ is high).  The significant physical conditioning required on a Triathlon is menacing, not to mention where do I find the time?  It’s a bit overwhelming, not unlike a lot of goals all of us face at work.  Stick with me.

I came across some good information from a guy named Ron Scolastico, who teaches the concept: “If you would go every day to a very large tree and take five swings at it with a very sharp ax, eventually, no matter how large the tree, it would have to come down.”  It’s another way of answering the question “How do you eat an elephant?” “One bite at a time.”  Same as the ‘Flywheel’ concept for companies in the best selling book “Good to Great” by Jim Collins.  Which small swing of the ax made the big tree fall?

I have been pretty conditioned over time, like many of us, to expect results to happen fast with whatever I am doing.  Whether it is work or personal life, I like to see near immediate results from my efforts (mowing the lawn—instant gratification in how the lawn looks; make a decision at work, put something into motion, and see some results of that action fairly quickly,  make a change in my golf swing — see the immediate change in ball flight, etc…).  I believe this built-in expectation can actually prevent a lot of people, including myself, from aggressively taking on big long-range goals.  They can be perceived to be so big and so far off that shorter term goals look more attractive.  Results happen faster.  I am confident that is why I have not taken steps toward achieving the Iron Man Triathlon goal previously, even though it was on my bucket list of goals for many years.

I decided to take this ‘Rule of 5’ concept and put it into practice with respect to the Ironman Triathlon dream goal.  I determined that the first ‘swing of the ax’ would be to sign up for a Triathlon even though I am not ready.  Signed up for a normal length Triathlon, paid the money, and am now committed.  Swing of the ax #2—tell people what I am doing to hold myself accountable.  Can’t back out because it would be too embarrassing.  How close am I to my ultimate goal?  Not very close.  But, closer than a month ago.  Swing of the ax #3—got a book on how to train for my 1st Triathlon.  Swing of the ax #4—signed up at a health club with a swimming pool (the swim portion of the Triathlon I perceive to be the toughest for me).  Ax swing #5: started daily training (7 new ax ‘swings’/week).  12 weeks away from my first Triathlon, I have started to train according to a pretty rigid daily plan laid out in that book I bought.  I run quite a bit already, but layering in the swimming, bicycling, and strength training is challenging.  The first big hurdle was that the training plan has me running further in a day than I have ever run before.  I was concerned about how to ‘step up’ to that level — the book said to back off my speed.  Routinely running at about 7.2 mph, I backed off the speed to 6.4 mph.

Nothing short of unbelievable as to how much of a difference that made in terms of the ability to go further.  This has been a good learning lesson to apply elsewhere—adjusting something just by a fraction in how you approach it can make a huge difference in accomplishing tasks.  Previously I was not open to change because I had my ‘routine’.  With the new training plan, I have no choice but to change.

Now I am wondering about all the other areas where I can make small changes to get better results!

Take Care,
Todd Gifford