Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes. Therefore, give yourself fully to your endeavors. Decide to construct your character through excellent actions and determine to pay the price of a worthy goal.
Epictetus
What is the price for a 140.6-mile goal?
On my quest to complete an Ironman, there is a convenient milestone: the Ironman 70.3. 70.3s are exactly half the distance of a full Ironman as a 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike ride, 13.1- mile run triathlon. 70.3 miles out of 140.6 seem like a decent down-payment, but the question remains: what is the price that one has to pay for a worthy goal?
I think that the price that we must pay every day for our goals is effort. Sounds simple enough, but in practice–like most everything else–it poses very real challenges.
If we begin by separating the world around us into two categories: things we can control, and things we cannot control, goals seem cut-and-dry — there is something that you want and it is in your control to achieve it, so you’re going to. For example, you may want to learn a new language. You have the ability to learn new information, and there are multiple different tools to help you: apps, books, videos, friends, etc. So why isn’t everyone a polyglot? Because there are things outside of our control that will come between us and our goals every day.
Sometimes it’s something as simple as the snooze button preventing us from getting our morning workout in before work, a late night at the office leading to a trip for fast-food, or the weather taking a turn for the worse that stops us from going on that bike ride we were supposed to. We can’t control that some sociopath who wanted everyone to be groggy in the mornings someone decided to invent the snooze button, or that work obligations throw our schedule for a loop, and unless something has changed drastically, we still cannot control the weather.
So, why do we let these things come between us and our goals?
Because they require a different level of effort than we previously assigned to our goal. Which, while still very much in our control, force us to recommit to our goal, by embarking on a “mini-goal”. These obstacles and distractions to our larger goals tend to derail everything in our elaborate, meticulous, and perfectly laid out plans to accomplish our goal. We look for ways to avoid these obstacles and get back to our goals but often fall into the same pitfalls, just in different ways.
The snooze button has now become “not having the right gear” for the conditions, the late night at work is now a late night out with friends, and any weather can be used as an excuse. The only way to get back to the main goal is to work through those obstacles as a necessary step, not as a detour or inconvenience, but as a part of the ultimate goal– becoming the type of person that has a strong enough character to accomplish their goals. I think Marcus Aurelius said it best:
The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way, become the way.
Marcus Aurelius
Once we give ourselves fully to our goals–regardless of the twists and turns–the character we build through those efforts pays and paves the way for any goal that we deem worthy.