3rd Step: Set Goals

Goals are a must.

Do you have goals?  Most of us have goals even if that is not what we call them.  Subconsciously we work towards things.  Possibly we want to be healthier and look better without a shirt on... that is a goal.  Maybe financially you want to be capable of retiring at the age of 55 or 60... that is a goal.  It might be something as simple as you want to lose 5 pounds, spend more time with your spouse, or save for a family vacation... those are all goals.

Now that we have established our core values and worked out a regimen for our time we need to look at what drives us to move forward.  What causes you to charge the hill of life day after day?  What you seek to accomplish is the carrot in front of you that keeps you pushing forward.  The need for goals is massive and will help you stick to the regimen you have established.

3 areas to set goals in.

The most important thing that your goals must do is be inline with your core values.  This probably goes without saying but sometimes we can be swayed off course especially when looking at long term goals.   Your core values are the foundation of being a Warrior and will help you make day to day decisions, but your core values must be a part of your short and long term goals.  If one of your core values is financial discipline then a goal to save money for a gambling trip to Vegas might not work for you.  

You can set as many goals as you would like but on your list you should have these 3 areas covered.  

Spiritual, Health, and Financial.

You must continually work on your spiritual life without question.  Goals to help you accomplish this should be a mainstay in your life and part of your daily regimen.  Completing books, starting a bible study with men, covering subjects that pertain to the Warrior spirit are goals that you can set for your life.  Daily devotional time should be part of your daily regimen.  One of my goals for the New Year is to spend a few minutes every day with my kids doing a devotional.  

Health is so important for you to maintain quality of life.  Goals pertaining to your health should be part of your daily regimen.  Set goals that are attainable so that you will maintain a positive attitude.  Decide how long it will take to accomplish goals for your health.  I personally want to lose 20 lbs over the next year.  That is a semi long term goal but I need to set up milestones to know that I am on track.  Breaking down long term goals into smaller short term goals is something every successful person does.  5 lbs every 3 months sounds more manageable than 20 lbs for the year and keeps me going to the end of 3 months.  

Financial goals are something that my wife and I have talked about endlessly through our marriage.  I will at some point dedicate an entire post to becoming debt free which is our long term financial goal.  It seems that when you are disciplined with your finances other areas of your life seem to fall into place.  I am not sure why it works this way, but it simply does.  An easy first goal for financial discipline is to set a budget if you do not have one already.  This is very important and should be part of your monthly regimen.  Next you might need to start saving for a new vehicle, that would be a financial goal.  Our family goal is to completely be free of consumer debt in 2 years so we have broken that down into monthly goals of what we need to save and put towards debt.  This helps to keep us accountable and throughout the year we will see small successes of eliminating debt as we move toward our goal.  You might be ready approaching retirement and have a goal of an amount you will need.  Financial goals can literally be small or large and everything in between.  Sadly money is a necessity and unfortunately most of us let money manage our lives instead of the other way around.  

How to set goals.

Now that we have established the three key areas to cover with goals; How do we go about setting goals?

Ask yourself what is important to you.  For my family right now the most important thing is for us to become debt free.  We are willing to forgo many things for this goal to be accomplished.  You will find that as you look at what is truly important to you that you will gladly forgo things to reach these goals.  As you look at goals and start to research what it takes to accomplish goals you will decide if the goal is really what you want.  I love the violin.  I believe it is the most beautiful instrument and can induce emotion more than any other instrument.  I however do not have the desire to put in the work that it would take to become even a hack at the violin.  I do not want to practice hour upon hour during the week.  I am simply content to listen to those that have mastered the instrument.  That is how you should look at your goals for your life.  Just because you love something it does not mean that you should make it part of your life's goals.  

In each of the 3 areas, Spiritual, Health, and Financial, ask yourself what is truly important and what you are willing to do to accomplish your goals.  Some will be easier for you than others and some will be quicker to reach than others.

How to reach your goals.

We have established what areas need goals as well as how to approach goal setting.  You have discovered what is truly important to you and what work you are willing to put into the reaching of said goals.  Now how do we maintain the excitement and discipline to reach these goals.

We have discussed some of my goals for my overall health.  I have made a real effort to understand what it will take to lose 5lbs every three months, which will finish next year with me reaching my goal of losing 20lbs.  I will have to eat a certain way and spend time doing something active on almost a daily basis.  I will also need to have the ability to change the plan when it is not working or I have hit a plateau.  I am willing to put the work in at the culmination of the goal, but how do I maintain the dedication needed to reach this goal.  

First thing first... I will write the goal down.  This is a way to hold yourself accountable and it will be available for your review.  Write a couple of statements about why you want to accomplish this goal.  You can go back later when you are wavering and see why it was an important goal at the moment of conception.

Next I would share the goal with someone or a group of people.  When other people know about your ambitions then your are more likely to push through tough times to accomplish these goals.  There is a built in accountability of keeping your word and not failing in front of others.  If needed setup a regular accountability meeting or phone call.  This is especially helpful for me when it comes to training.

Once the goal has been set (for this example my goal of losing 20lbs over the next year) then fit it into your daily, weekly, and monthly regimen. Possibly scheduling events like a 5k or a goruck out in the future for motivation.  I might need to have someone to hold me accountable if it is something I struggle with.  These are all things that can help you accomplish goals.  

Be realistic with your shortcomings.  That is important for goal setting and obtaining goals.  I would be doing myself a disservice if I was not honest about my lack of ability to stick to a diet for long periods of time and pretended that I did not need the help of accountability.

Establish the habit.  This is something that I mentioned in the 2nd step to becoming a Warrior.  All of the goals you set you must try to fit the necessary changes needed in your daily life to accomplish these goals into your daily, weekly, monthly regimen.  Habits must be formed.  This will be the only way most of your goals, especially long term goals, will be accomplished.

Going back to my family's goal of becoming debt free.  We had to make changes in our spending habits and the way we value things and money.  The budget became our financial Bible.  I will go into more detail in a future post, but we allocated certain amounts of money monthly for things like entertainment and even money for my wife and I to spend freely.  If the money is not there we simply do not do or buy anything.  This was definitely a change in habit for us, but with this discipline we have become much happier and have started to see results in accomplishing our goal.  

Make it second nature by setting it into your daily regimen and committing to the goal daily.

Share some of your goals for the upcoming year.  Let me know what things you do to help you achieve your goals.

2nd Step: Establish a Warrior Regimen

A Warrior Regimen

What does your daily routine look like?  Do you roll out of bed and follow a similar day to day path?  Is there purpose and commitment involved with your day to day regimen?  Does your day to day regimen fall inline with your weekly plan, monthly plan, and your annual plan?  Now that you have established your core values to help guide you it is important to set a day to day regimen that is based on these core values.

Why is a Regimen important?

Very similar to the reason it is important to establish your core values to define your direction in life your daily routine should build on these values.  One of my values is God therefore a daily time to dwell on my God and to spend time in meditation with Him is very important for me to stay true to my core values.  Without an established regimen then it is possible for me to overlook this time when life becomes busy.

Flexibility is another reason that having a daily regimen will be beneficial.  This seems counter intuitive, but when you are not organized with your daily life then it is hard to be spontaneous.  When you are organized and have your day planned then you can handle events that might pop up or make decisions to deviate from your regimen much easier than when you are rolling from day to day willy-nilly. 

A regimen will help you accomplish goals.

Without a daily routine you will have a harder time accomplishing your goals.  We will talk about setting goals in the next post.  Goals are important for your life but without a daily regimen you will have a harder time accomplishing most of your goals or it will take you twice as long.  If you set a goal to lose weight then how will you go about accomplishing this goal?  You will have to set time aside each day to be active, and having a daily regimen will allow you to be more disciplined.

A daily regimen will build into a weekly regimen which will roll into a monthly regimen and ultimately to an extent your year will be planned.  This is important for your goal setting and accomplishing these goals.  As mentioned above when you set long term goals you will need to account for the effort needed to accomplish these goals daily, weekly, monthly, and annually.

What does a Warrior Regimen look like?

You should establish for yourself what you want your regimen to look like.  I believe it should contain these components: consistent wake up time, devotional time/meditation with God, exercise, career focus thought and planning, fellowship with loved ones (family or friends), daily time with spouse or significant other if that is part of your life, and a consistent bed time.  These things should be your base but you can expand however and wherever you want.  For example planning your meals for the day is probably a good idea to save money eating out and to be healthier.  Time  management is a very important part of being a warrior and your daily regimen will help you in this area.  

The tools.

At work I always have a pen and something to write on.  This is a must for my hectic job and career but it also gives the impression that I am prepared and ready to maintain preparedness.  I would imagine for most of the Warriors out there that are married and have kids and also have financial and fitness goals mixed in with several manly pursuits that your life seems hectic.  My advice is to keep a planner or calendar of some kind for your personal life.  Use Google calendar or even just your smart phone but write things down and make appointments for yourself when things need to be remembered.  The next step would be to keep a journal which is part of my goals for the upcoming year that I will write about in another post.  The habit of recording things important will give you confidence and will help you remember important dates, events, and even names, which all help you give the impression of a put together Warrior.

How to get started.

It sounds easy but setting a regimen and sticking to it is far from easy especially if it is a new practice.  I personally struggle with managing my free time when it is outside of my required duties as a husband, a father, an employee/employer, and pursuing a few of my true passions such as hunting or cycling.  That is why these blog posts are so sporadic and the podcast has yet to be consistent, but this is my major goal for the upcoming year.  I will start planning my days, weeks, and months so that I can use my free time to become a Warrior and spend time thinking, in fellowship with other Warriors, and sharing the Warrior mindset.  

This is how I am going to start and it might be a helpful guide for those of you that have similar struggles.  First I am going to set my daily wake and sleep schedule.  I feel that this should bookend your day and should be sufficient enough for you to remain healthy.  I am going to go with an 8 hour sleep schedule.  Wake up will be 5:30am and my head will hit the pillow at 9:30pm.  

Once awake I will spend the first 30 min in meditation and scripture reading with the last 10 min in earnest prayer for specific things.  

After meditation and prayer I will begin some sort of endurance type training.  This will be light and mainly to start the day with my blood flowing and shouldn't last more than 30 min.  We will dive more into the importance of physical activity in the next post.

Next I will prepare myself for work, shower, shave, and well you know the other word that begins with sh.  I will make my morning cup of coffee and hit the door headed to work.  Here is where your day is planned for you at least most of us and I will not get into the details of how I handle my professional life but I will say that I have a standard work or regimen of how I conduct my day. This regimen never changes and it allows me to remain accountable and stay involved with my teams.

I consistently leave work and arrive home around 5:15-5:45pm at which time I will make a point to hug and kiss my wife in front of the kiddos as we prepare to sit down for supper.  At supper I walk through the first few questions of the catechism which you can find here then we walk through each of the kiddos day and talk about things of importance.  This is usually about 45 min.

At that point I have a decision to make.  Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I like to do strength training after supper.  Tuesday and Thursday I will make a point to play with the kids outside if weather permits.  I believe both are important for the kids especially my son.  I want them to understand the importance of staying healthy and hopefully the habits I have will rub off on my kiddos.  The play time during the week is also important because they know that they are important.  Some might have a problem with taking three days a week for yourself before the kids go to bed and that is fine set your schedule how you need to in order to make your family happy this is just the best for us at this time and I might have to readjust as the kids grow older. Both of these actions are usually complete by 7:30pm

At this point we are ready to start the wind down and bed time for my kids.  Once they are ready (teeth brushed etc) I read a book to them and then we say our prayers together. This puts us at 8pm.

At 8pm I spend time talking with my wife about her day and listening to her.  We usually take about 30 min of just one on one time.  This doesn't sound like a lot but it is super important.  No phone, no television distraction, and no children interruptions.  For 30 min my wife has my undivided attention and I have her's.

Now we come to the last hour of my day.  Time to prepare for the next day.  Pack my lunch and any other nutrition needs I have for the next day.  Prepare the clothes that I will wear the next day and anything else that I might need to be successful the next day.

If there is any time left over I spend it reading, watching television, spending extra time with my wife, or from this point on spending time on themodernwarriors.com.  The last act of the night is to pray with my wife and then we go to bed.

I understand that it seems that I have very little free time but planning my day like this should allow me to make changes when needed because I will have invested time with my family, prepared for work, and spent time spiritually and physically training daily.  I would like to note that even though I mentioned the time that most things begin nothing is set in stone.  I do not necessarily watch the clock to make sure I am done playing with my kids right at 7:30pm I let things evolve organically and most times everything is complete within five minutes of the time stated.  I encourage you to be flexible with most times during the day other than your wake up time.  I also did not cover my weekend schedule.  I do try to wake up at the same time but I am more flexible with that as well as my bed time.  Naturally as you consistently rise at an early time during the week you will find it hard to sleep for too long past that time on the weekends.  This opens up all sorts of possible time to accomplish things on the weekend when yo are awake earlier than most.  

Remember with discipline comes freedom.