Goals and Dreams
If you could dream your biggest dream what would it be? What is stopping you from achieving your dream? Could you make your dream bigger? What steps could you take right now to get there? If you know the steps you have to take but continue not to take them, why is that?
Goals and dreams are great to have, but there are a lot of things that can get in the way. As someone that has a lot of goals, I always like to try new tools and systems for achieving those goals and the life I want. Below are some steps and advice that I think will help you achieve yours.
Set your dreams. You need your big dreams, yes BIG DREAMS. I see so many players limit themselves on their dreams of what they think they can achieve. Dream as big as you want and visualize yourself living your dream as much as possible. They can be as specific or broad as you’d like, I personally prefer a mixture of both.
Then you’ll set your shorter term goals, these are more reachable in the near future and will propel you towards accomplishing your big dream. You can set as few or as many as you need. Same goes with the dreams of course.
Ask yourself why you want these goals and dreams.
Write all of this down and put it somewhere you see it everyday.
Find the tasks that you need to do each week to reach your goals, which will eventually lead you to your big dream. Not sure how you do this? I created a weekly goal tracking sheet for skill specific progress where you can set your goals and check in each week to see why you aren’t progressing forward or if your goals need to change. Click here to get my free goal worksheet. You can easily adjust this for anything you want to accomplish!
This process of continual evaluation of your goals and auditing your life to see where you can improve will ultimately lead you to where you want to go.
Visualize and talk about your dreams and goals as much as possible. Not only will you have others to hold you accountable to your goals, but you might find others with the same ones that can help you in your journey. Work is so much easier when you know you have others working with you to achieve the same thing!
What are my goals? Just keep reading…
My goals and dreams.
The three of these all correlate, but yours don’t have to. For me, obtaining my CSCS is my near-term goal. I want to have the knowledge necessary to take the athletes I work with to the next level in strength and conditioning. Specifically, I want to help goalies become stronger, faster, and better by creating specific programs just for them! I want to help girls get excited about lifting and getting stronger and generally help more people and kids enjoy living healthy lifestyles. With the certification I will be able to do that and so much more.
My dream is to open the LM Lax Training Center, or something along those lines, with a weight room, a study or film room, a quiet room for meditation and yoga, and of course a lacrosse field. I want to create this space where girls and boys alike can work hard on any aspect of the game in an environment that is welcoming and uplifting for every kind of person and personality that enters the facility. I want this place to combine passion, excitement, intensity, and excellence with love, warmth, and kindness. Yes, it’s an interesting combination, but it’s my dream!
My constant dream and goal is to make change. I want to constantly make change in who I am to better myself and understanding of topics on and off the field, I want to make change in this game by working hard enough to create such a facility and ultimately use it to give more kids that might not have access, opportunity to play the game. I want to make change in how people think, how we view one another, how coaches coach their athletes, and generally create more empathy in the world.
It’s a lot, I know. What’s important to understand with these dreams is not to blindly think anything is possible, but rather, find dreams and goals that make you want to put in the work to make them happen. If you’re not willing to put in the work, then we need to reassess what those dreams and goals are. Find the thing that even when things don’t go your way you still want to fight for it.
It’s always going to go up and down. It never follows a linear path. Every great athlete, entrepreneur, artist, or person, will tell you there were a lot of hard times that led them to their goals. The hard part is never giving up, and that’s why it’s crucial to know your why and have that ready when you need a reminder.
I’m sure a lot of you are sitting and thinking maybe yesterday or today didn’t go the way you wanted. It doesn’t matter. Everyday we get new opportunities to restart and redirect our actions on the path we want to take to align with our goals. You don’t need a start of a new month or even a Monday to start a change you want to make. You just have to make a point to decide. My post-it’s help me make that choice even on the days I feel tired or whatever the reason or excuse I don’t feel like putting in the work. Hard work always pays off in the end.