Liz Miller, over 60 swimmer, IT Professor, killin’ it:
“Start out with a small goal that’s just barely attainable.”
“Start out with a small goal that’s just barely attainable.”
Last year, in 2015, I started swimming – after 40 years of not swimming.
Here’s what it looked like then: flailing from one end of the pool to the other arriving exhausted after 25 yards. In fact, swimming that distance was a huge feat. Put it this way: for many months, the goal was “Don’t Drown!”
My first goal was to swim 12 laps by the end of December. And I did that. Then the goal for 2016 was to swim 18 laps with a possible open water swim in June of a half mile.
The half mile swim didn’t happen. It was too cold. It turned out to be a mile, not a half mile swim. And I needed a wetsuit and I didn’t want to get one for the first swim. (Excuses, excuses, excuses - but the truth was I wasn’t ready - I didn’t trust that I could do it.)
But I kept plugging away at it. Cathy suggested that we try a “friend swim” - just three of us, all friends for more than 40 years, no pressure, just fun. So off to Walden Pond we go. Me with the idea of swimming the width of the pond. Our friend Jane with the brave, ridiculous idea of swimming to the other end of the pond.
“Ok…, if Jane can do it, I can try!” And we did it. And back. A mile in Walden Pond! I didn’t drown! The experience gave me the confidence to enter the Swim ‘n Fin open water mile swim in Salem, even though open water has frightened me since the summers of Jaws... talk about embracing the uncomfortable!
Then Cathy said I needed goals for that...And here’s what mine were:
#1. Don’t drown.
#2. Finish in under one hour.
#3. Finish within ten minutes of the person in front of me. (I expected to be dead stop last, and I was perfectly fine with that.)
So, what happened?
#1. I didn’t drown. (Editorial note from Cathy: she knew she had to write a ChitChat.)
#2. The person in front of me was under 1 minute ahead.
#3. I finished in under an hour and beat a man in my age group (who was wearing a wetsuit – which is faster – and I was not).
The conditions were beyond challenging. Choppy cold water with a wind and tide against us the whole way. (Up hill to school, in the snow…) And even though I had vision-correcting goggles, they filled with water so I could barely see where I was going.
Talking to friends about starting any challenge, the first step, as MOVE! teaches, is to set a goal. From there, for me, the process is twofold. You have to want the goal. If you don’t want it, you need to reassess it. And then, every day you have that goal in your mind somewhere. Even when I am not swimming I still thinking about my swimming goals. Thinking about them helps me imagine getting there.
For example, not knowing how far a mile is to swim in open water, I figured out how far my walk to school was – a little over a mile – then imagined actually swimming that. At first it was overwhelming to think about, but the more I reframed the laps into miles, and miles into laps, the further I was able to swim in the pool, and the easier it was to imagine an open-water mile.
What I tell my students – I occasionally talk about swimming when talking of goal setting and reflection – is that you start out with a small goal that’s just barely attainable. As you get closer to that, you reflect and move the goal further and further out. Part of the reflection is to recognize that you have made the goal. And sometimes staying where you are is progress.
No, I have no intention of a long distance open water swim, but I do want to improve my time in the mile, stay challenged, and stay fit. The best side-benefit, besides bragging rights, is that I’m making and achieving goals in my personal and professional life, moving faster yet more calmly through life’s challenges, because I know I can do it - a little at a time.
-- Liz Miller, over 60 swimmer, IT Professor, killin’ it.
Here’s what it looked like then: flailing from one end of the pool to the other arriving exhausted after 25 yards. In fact, swimming that distance was a huge feat. Put it this way: for many months, the goal was “Don’t Drown!”
My first goal was to swim 12 laps by the end of December. And I did that. Then the goal for 2016 was to swim 18 laps with a possible open water swim in June of a half mile.
The half mile swim didn’t happen. It was too cold. It turned out to be a mile, not a half mile swim. And I needed a wetsuit and I didn’t want to get one for the first swim. (Excuses, excuses, excuses - but the truth was I wasn’t ready - I didn’t trust that I could do it.)
But I kept plugging away at it. Cathy suggested that we try a “friend swim” - just three of us, all friends for more than 40 years, no pressure, just fun. So off to Walden Pond we go. Me with the idea of swimming the width of the pond. Our friend Jane with the brave, ridiculous idea of swimming to the other end of the pond.
“Ok…, if Jane can do it, I can try!” And we did it. And back. A mile in Walden Pond! I didn’t drown! The experience gave me the confidence to enter the Swim ‘n Fin open water mile swim in Salem, even though open water has frightened me since the summers of Jaws... talk about embracing the uncomfortable!
Then Cathy said I needed goals for that...And here’s what mine were:
#1. Don’t drown.
#2. Finish in under one hour.
#3. Finish within ten minutes of the person in front of me. (I expected to be dead stop last, and I was perfectly fine with that.)
So, what happened?
#1. I didn’t drown. (Editorial note from Cathy: she knew she had to write a ChitChat.)
#2. The person in front of me was under 1 minute ahead.
#3. I finished in under an hour and beat a man in my age group (who was wearing a wetsuit – which is faster – and I was not).
The conditions were beyond challenging. Choppy cold water with a wind and tide against us the whole way. (Up hill to school, in the snow…) And even though I had vision-correcting goggles, they filled with water so I could barely see where I was going.
Talking to friends about starting any challenge, the first step, as MOVE! teaches, is to set a goal. From there, for me, the process is twofold. You have to want the goal. If you don’t want it, you need to reassess it. And then, every day you have that goal in your mind somewhere. Even when I am not swimming I still thinking about my swimming goals. Thinking about them helps me imagine getting there.
For example, not knowing how far a mile is to swim in open water, I figured out how far my walk to school was – a little over a mile – then imagined actually swimming that. At first it was overwhelming to think about, but the more I reframed the laps into miles, and miles into laps, the further I was able to swim in the pool, and the easier it was to imagine an open-water mile.
What I tell my students – I occasionally talk about swimming when talking of goal setting and reflection – is that you start out with a small goal that’s just barely attainable. As you get closer to that, you reflect and move the goal further and further out. Part of the reflection is to recognize that you have made the goal. And sometimes staying where you are is progress.
No, I have no intention of a long distance open water swim, but I do want to improve my time in the mile, stay challenged, and stay fit. The best side-benefit, besides bragging rights, is that I’m making and achieving goals in my personal and professional life, moving faster yet more calmly through life’s challenges, because I know I can do it - a little at a time.
-- Liz Miller, over 60 swimmer, IT Professor, killin’ it.