Found this story on the web years ago and when I think about goals-setting and goal accomplishing, about finishing the race, I think about this.

Her goal was the California coastline –a 34 km swim from Catalina Island. It was no more distant than the width of the English Channel, a goal she had already conquered as the first woman to swim it from both directions. Although she was a seasoned long-distance swimmer with incredible stamina, she trained arduously to prepare herself to achieve her goal.

July 4th, 1952
Millions watched on national television, as 34 year old Florence Chadwick began her swim. The water was icy cold; the fog — so thick she could hardly see the support boats alongside her. As the hours passed, she was repeatedly stung by jellyfish. Sharks had to be driven away with rifles. Yet she pressed on, determined to achieve her goal.

15 hours later
Numbed with the cold, she was ready to give up. Her mother and her trainer were in a boat at her side. “Florence. You are almost there. Don’t give up now.” Encouraged by her mother’s admonition, she continued to swim.

Failure
Fifteen hours and fifty minutes after she began her swim, the support team reluctantly agreed to pull Florence from the water. Several hours later, after she warmed up, she realized she had given up only a few hundred meters from her goal! If she had continued just a little while longer, the waves would have carried her to the beach. “If I could have just seen the land for myself, I would have made it!”. She told reporters it was not the sharks, the fatigue, or even the cold water that defeated her. She had been defeated by the fog alone. It had obscured her goal and blinded her reason, her eyes and her heart.

Never give in to defeat.
1952 was the only time Florence Chadwick ever quit. Two months later she swam that same channel. The water was still ice cold and still inhabited with sharks. Once again fog obscured her view. But this time she pressed on, BELIEVING that somewhere beyond that fog, her goal would be reached. Not only was she the first woman to swim the Catalina Channel, but she beat the men’s record by two hours!

Obviously were heading into the new year and the new year comes associated with the word resolution. One dictionary defines resolution as “a firm decision to do or not to do something” and that’s what we’re looking for in this week’s workout.

Workout: Write down 25 goals for 2009 and share them with someone else. The goals have to be written and constructed in the S.M.A.R.T. format described below.  The goals should also be meaningful, that is, you should be able to link your goals to your values, your vision, and your mission. There’s no need to categorize the goals though I suggest you consider physical/health goals, financial goals, relational/emotional goals, mental goals and spiritual goals. In other words at the end of 2009, your relationships should be stronger and you should be healthier, wealthier, and wiser (to borrow Ben Franklin’s “early to bed” outcomes).

The spiritual, by definition, is less tangible. I can see the fruit of a strong spiritual life and I can identify manifestations of the soul but I sometimes have difficulty quantifying spiritual activities and development. I’ll give you a couple days to think about this on your own (please share your thoughts in the comments section) then share some of my thinking later in the week.

S.M.A.R.T. Goals:

• S-Specific: your goals should be as precise and defined as you can make them.  The goal “to get in shape”  is ambiguous and fuzzy. What kind of shape? A round shape? I already got that one… If this is a health related goal then it would be more specific to describe the shape as a certain weight or waist size. Maybe you want to run a 10k race or deadlift 400 pounds.  Whatever it is make it specific enough for you to know if you’ve made it.  Financial and physical goals are a little easier with this one. The relational and spiritual ones may prove challenging.
• M -Measurable: when you think of this one think rulers, scales, numbers, percentages… you should know when you’ve finished your goal. The only way to do that is to craft the goal with measurement in mind. Example: “In 2009 I will memorize five bible verses a week.” When it’s phrased in this fashion I can tell you that I completed this goal, I completed half of this goal or none of this goal. I now have the ability to measure my accomplishment (or lack thereof) and this ability motivates the accomplishment.
• A -Aligned: as mentioned in the workout’s description, you should be able to draw a straight line from your goals, through your values and what’s important to you, and then to the vision and calling in your life. Don’t make goals that you don’t really want to accomplish or are in opposition to who you are.  You need to be pretty clear on who you to make this one work and may have to start with some value identifying work.  I’ll talk about this more this week.
• R -Reasonable (or realistic): “I will lose 20 pounds today” is specific, measurable, maybe aligned, but, I’m going to suggest- unreasonable. I know it’s possible to lose 20 pounds in a day (witness the Ultimate Fighter) but it really is unacceptably unreasonable. One person told me to think off a reasonable goal as one that is just out of reach. The challenge in this section is to make the goal challenging enough that just seeing it motivates and inspires us to do it and not so challenging that it stops and discourages us.
• T -Time frame: your goal should have a “finish by” date. For example, “in three months I’ll…” or “…by the end of March.” Without a timeframe or deadline your goal is a dream. This is one of the things that prevent many of the goals we have from getting checked off.

Two things will help you harness the power of focused goals in your life this year. The first is this S.M.A.R.T. structure for your goals. If you can write a goal that is specific, measurable, aligned, reasonable, and has a timeframe you are good to go. The second thing that will help you is the second part of the workout description – “… and share them with someone else.” If you have people in your life that can and will hold you accountable to these goals (and just telling somebody helps) you’ll be more likely to move from the goal-setting group to the goal-accomplishing group.