First published 4 February 2019 on Your Best Year Starts Here with Nigel Risner.
Listen on Spotify.
Last week we ran out of time at S, M and A (and yes, I opened with the baby milk joke). So this one picks up exactly where part one stopped, and Nigel finally got through the rest of his SMARTER goals.
His R is relevant. What's relevant depends on where you are in life, and for Nigel right now it's his fitness. T is trackable, by at least five other people, and he went big and put his own target out there for every listener to track. E is enjoyable, because if it hurts you'll quit (hello, gym). The last R is a reward. When he wrote his first book the family got Center Parcs after chapter one and a week in Tenerife halfway through. Florida came when it was published, and the minute they landed his daughter asked when he was writing the next one. His rewards are pens and watches, never chocolate. I've seen his fridge.
The public bit got me telling my running story. When I was 12 I watched my dad run a half marathon and thought I could never do that. I was always last to be picked for sport. Then in 2012 I met someone training for Ironman who looked completely normal, so I signed up for a 10-mile race and asked for sponsorship on social media. No training. My first run was about a mile, half of it walking, and I was breathing like Darth Vader. Losing the entry fee I could live with. Backing down in front of my sponsors I couldn't (I reckon they only sponsored me because they thought I couldn't do it).
I go the other way and cut SMART down, dropping the A and the R. Realistic keeps you small. And if a goal has to be agreed by someone else, it isn't really yours. Nigel's version of that involves Cindy Crawford, who'd need to get divorced first.
We finished on celebrating. Every night I write down what I'm grateful for with a Montblanc pen, in a ridiculously overpriced Elvis & Kresse notepad made from reclaimed London fire hose. Then we got onto to-do lists, agreed with each other, and Nigel announced we were aligned for the first time in 2019. The buzzer never went off.
The bits worth keeping
- Pick goals that are relevant to where you are right now. That changes over time.
- Tell people what you're doing. It's much harder to quit in front of the people who sponsored you.
- Build in a reward you actually want, and make it something other than the thing you're trying to cut down on.
- Don't make a goal depend on someone else agreeing to it.
- A small daily celebration counts. Mine is a gratitude list every night before I finish.
I think if you go for something that's realistic, you limit yourself in terms of your potential.
Neil Martin
If there's a reward in place, you're gonna be more geared towards it.
Nigel Risner
