Daily Habits Aligning With Your Aspirations

August 16th, 2021

Do your daily habits align with your long-term aspirations

Last week I wrote a lot about the art of journaling; what to keep track of, how often to track, throwing sessions, lifting sessions, etc.  My podcast episodes from last week also align with the topic of journaling, the research behind journaling and how journaling is the ultimate accountability partner.  In essence we use our journals to track our habits, the decisions we make on a day-to-day basis that assist us in achieving our goals.

When tracking our day-to-day (throwing, training, nutrition, hours slept, how we feel in the morning, etc.) it is important to consider that our daily actions align with our long-term aspirations.  We want to make sure we bank quality days that will help us build towards our long-term goal for ourselves.  Not tracking is a sure fire way to ensure it will take us longer (or maybe not at all) to achieve our goals.  But do your daily actions align with your long-term pursuits?

For the athletes that have a specific distance or championship endeavor in mind, those concepts are our goals-what we hope to accomplish.  However, those are not daily behaviors or habits.  It is our daily pursuits that will lead us down the path of accomplishing our goals.  

If your goal is to throw 150’ in the discus or win a conference championship in the javelin, it is important to ensure that our daily habits are in alignment with the long-term pursuit of winning a championship or throwing an implement a certain distance.

For example, during my senior year at Fredonia my goal was to win the 35lb weight throw and hammer SUNYAC championships.  Those were not behaviors, but rather my aspirations to achieve before I graduated from college.  During the fall semester and into the indoor season my sole focus was to win.  I wasn’t taking into consideration all the other factors that would play a role in that outcome, such as how well my competitors would throw.  I lost sight of all the things I needed to master before I could throw farther than I had in my junior year.  It wasn’t until after our indoor conference meet, where I finished 4th, that I realized I needed to realign my daily habits (although I didn’t call them habits back in 2004) to support my aspiration of winning the hammer competition.