Posted by Asa Beavers on Tue, Aug 05, 2008 @ 08:38 AM
Hey Overachivers — yes, you! Congratulations! If you clicked on the link and opened the blog you can consider yourself an overachiever. Why? Because there’s a select few, a small percentage, a minority of people, who actually seek knowledge to improve themselves, and by clicking on this you’re one of them.
I consider myself an overachiever because I bury my heart and soul into what I’m passionate about and never give up. But the thing is I don’t feel like I’ve achieved the level of success that I desire and deserve. Sure, I’m successful in many things I do, but there’s always more to learn and more to do, and finding ways of doing just that is what drives the overachiever.
If you’ve read my previous blog you know that regular exercise is my primary hobby. Having gotten bored with routine workouts and just being physically fit, I have committed to complete 5 triathlons this year — the longest being a half Ironman distance. After my first 2 events this year — both short, sprint distance triathlons — I decided to hire a training coach, someone who has completed and coached others in long distance events.
Now, I’m not new to coaching. After all, I’m a business coach working with clients, and I have a business coach who advises me, and holds me accountable to building my business. So to me, it makes perfect sense to have someone to advise me and hold me accountable to my training goals. As an overachiever, I don’t just want to finish or survive an event, I want to finish with a smile on my face knowing I gave it everything I had.
Talk about deja vu — it’s just the second week working with my coach, but the similarities between my training coach and business coaching are frightening. Since my goals were already set, the next thing we had to do was establish a baseline. In other words, we needed measurements. In business, I call them KPIs — key performance indicators. In endurance sports, it’s all about managing my heart rate. So, I purchased a heart rate monitor and put myself through some tests to establish my level of fitness and ability to recover from high intensity exercise.
The next thing was to prioritize my workout schedule and throw in some new workout routines and strategies. Again, this is awfully familiar with how I work with a business.
So, all you overachievers out there who don’t feel like you’ve achieved the level of success that you desire or deserve, give this coaching thing a try. You might find that having someone advise you and hold you accountable is what it will take to reach that next level.
So, how about it other overachievers —
what have you found that works for you?
Posted by Asa Beavers on Wed, Jul 09, 2008 @ 08:02 AM
While many of us were enjoying a long holiday weekend relaxing, one American went about setting a record that maybe only those of us over 40 can fully appreciate.
Dara Torres, a 4 time Olympic swimmer, qualified for her 5th Olympics in both the women’s 50 and 100 meter freestyle events. At the age of 41, she becomes the oldest American swimmer to ever compete in the Olympics, and over the weekend she won the 50 meter event at the Trials – some competitors were half her age - and set an American record to boot.
Genetics aside, she’s got something special that all of us possess but only few can ever fully tap into. She has that inner drive that only people who achieve world class status in their endeavors know about. You know who I’m talking about: Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Lance Armstrong, Bill Gates, and the like. In some people’s eyes they are super human; if not of body, certainly of mind.
Not all of us are going to achieve world class status, yet there are ordinary people with strong innner drive among us doing extraordinary things everyday. These are people who aspire to do more and are willing to put forth the effort to achieve something they desire. And guess what, they do have something in common with those who achieve world class status. They know how to go about goal setting. They surround themselves with coaches and advisors. They develop and implement a plan of action. They have the discipline to follow their action plan. And maybe most important, they are passionate about what it is they wish to accomplish.
Earlier this year I felt I needed something to push myself out of my comfort zone so I added a new challenge to my life. I made the commitment to complete a half Ironman Triathlon in September. Just to finish will be an extraordinary feeling of accomplishment for me. It won’t put me up there in the “world class” status, but my family and friends will think it’s pretty extraordinary.
So what was my weekend like? Training and looking forward to that feeling…
How about you? Are you or someone you know working toward a goal that others may call extraordinary?