Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Setting Goalz2Get what you want. Cute doggy pic.

This is an oddly "motivational speaker-esque" post.  Hope you like it.   If you're not in the mood, that's cool too, I just better not catch you reading Stephen Covey later today....
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I've been lucky enough in my job to hire someone to assist me in the stuff I have to do.  And filling this position was primarily my responsibility.  Not unexpectedly, I reviewed a ton of resumes.  Some were ok, some really good, and a couple were so painful to read I had to email the people back and say 'omg in the future please change this, you are making yourself sound insane".


The thing that struck me, is that no one seemed to know what they wanted!  Granted, I was interviewing a bunch of 22 year olds, so that makes sense, but on my end, I had no idea if these "kids" would actually like the job enough to excel in it.  Everyone seemed more in the process of wanting to "find themselves" rather than getting the job we were offering.

We ended up hiring someone who has been interning in my department for months.  (And if he is reading my blog, I hope he'll forgive me for sharing this story).  

Why'd we hire this guy?

Sure, he's a hard worker, a friendly guy, someone we feel like we can trust, but primarily, he wanted it more.
He put in the time of countless months of thankless intern work, and he was always on top of his stuff.   He came to company social events and made friends.  And when the time came to interview, he looked us straight in the eye and told us how much he wanted it and that he wouldn't let us down.

And it felt SO great to tell him that we wanted him to come on board full-time.

What Can I Say, The Dude Knew What He Wanted. 

There's some famous psychology experiment  (I'm taking some liberty with it in my description) where people were given different options of shampoo in a supermarket.  They had the choices of say Pert Plus, Pantene, and Head and Shoulders, and picking what they wanted was an easy choice.
When they were offered 100 choices, the customers got overwhelmed and didn't want to choose.

This, for me, is one of the reasons that running is awesome.  It's easy to define our goals.  


The process to achieve goals is still pretty freaking simple too.  Train hard, and you'll probably run well.  


I know...there are a bunch of different training plans out there, different types of shoes, and there are even running skirts and weird five fingered shoes.  But even among different training plans, the concept of getting into shape, a peak, and a taper are the same.  

So how do we apply this simplicity in running to our everyday lives? 

Shiiiiizzzz girl, I don't know.  All I know if that I learned something from my (former) intern this week.  "Decide what your goal is first, and then work hard to make it happen.".

And the result is sort of like a distance race.  You don't always PR, but if you run a smart, focused race, you've got a much better chance of getting it.  And if you don't reach your goal, well...there are probably good snacks waiting for you at the end because at least you gave it all you had.

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Ok...thus ends the motivational speech.  Here's your reward!  


hehehe.  

9 comments:

  1. bahaha I love that picture!

    your speech was pretty nifty, too. :)

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  2. Hell yeah for getting an assistant! That guy seems like he'll be awesome for you. Nice motivational speech too. I think people can get caught up in the act of prepping for races and can forget why they're doing it and what their goal is. Big picture gets lost in repeat 1600s..

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  3. Great post! Definitely why I love running - the simplicity of it. All you need are shoes and pavement, throw in a training plan and you have a system. I wish I could break everything else in my life down as simply!

    That picture is hilarious.

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  4. SO STINKIN CUTE!! I love your motivational speech:) I love running because you can even set small goals and accomplish them every day...like an awesome tempo run, or working on your stride or having a true recovery run. For me I need to start setting smaller goals too in my everyday life!

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  5. This is an awesome example. Love it and thanks for sharing. I am amazing at how many younger graduating kids have no idea what they want. Like seriously common people.

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  6. I love how they are called 'five-fingered' shoes.

    I love how the guy who really wanted it got it :)

    Let's get crackin' on those goals.

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  7. Actually part of what I enjoy about running is NOT having goals.

    I run because it makes me feel awesome. Simple. It's an escape from life, it's where I feel like I'm truly living.

    Ok let me think about this again. Ok fine, I do have goals-- I want to do the best that I can. And I want to try that marathon in November. And I guess I do have goals when I say to myself, "I'd like to run 5 miles today".

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  8. way to go for getting an assistant! now we need to get u one for training, some dude to hold the clock and write down ur splits...maybe even hire a few annoying cheerleaders. ;) jk.

    wow, so i feel like i've dropped off the face of the planet a bit, been catching up and way to go on those milers! actually, i love doin long intervals...second after tempo runs...haha. but ya, those middle laps seem waaaaay too long...hehe.

    okay, on this post, great motivational speech and i agree that's the great thing about running is there are definites. u have goals, u know if u are at least heading in the right direction to them; but even if things come up and u don't meet them, u can still keep chasing til u do.

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  9. Look at you getting all philosophical on us. But yes, I agree that part of running's greatness is the ease of goal setting and also seeing progress when you work hard.

    That picture is awesome. Subwoofers. I always wondered why they decided to name a stereo component a subwoofer.

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