I recently received a wonderful letter from one of my former students, Haley Mullins. As you can see from her letter below, she recently achieved one of her dream goals, rock climbing a mountain. She specifically mentioned that she was inspired by a recent goal setting session of Leaders Connect.
Question of the Week
Here’s my question of the week: What is your personal stretch goal – a big hairy audacious goal – one that seems almost impossible, but one that you dream of achieving?
“So, as you may or may not remember, I’m not much of a goal setter myself. Even when I mentor people, I always talk extensively about goal setting with them but always joke that it’s a “do as I say not as I do” thing. I know I should be doing it more myself, but for whatever reason it just hasn’t stuck for me.
But when you did your Leaders Connect on goal setting a while back, it was at a time that I really needed it. I was feeling pretty lost at sea with COVID, and felt generally directionless. It felt like it couldn’t hurt to try out goal setting again. Through the Leaders Connect discussion, I set a handful of goals, wrote them on a sticky note, and stuck it to my work monitor so I’d see it daily.
One of the goals I set was for physical/mental health, and it was to rock climb outdoors this year. I had done it indoors a handful of times, and wanted to get myself in a place where I would be comfortable trying it outdoors. So, I committed to going to the climbing gym 2x per week, and building strength so when I found the opportunity to climb outside, I would be ready.
Fast forward to May, and while I was on a van trip with a friend, we drove through a town where she happened to have a friend who is a climbing guide. And since I had been preparing for it over the winter, I was both physically and mentally ready to jump at the chance to go out climbing with them! It ended up being an incredible experience, and I’m hooked.
I’m actually typing this email to you with a car packed full of adventure gear as I’m about to head out the door for a week in Utah to climb, canyoneer, and hike. And I credit being able to do all this with really thinking through my goal of climbing, and breaking down the exact steps I needed to take to achieve it.
So… sorry for the long email, but I wanted to send a sincere THANK YOU for that goal setting session.”
Please let me know if you’d be interested in a small goal setting group. I am planning to start one in the fall.