What’s your goal?

It doesn’t have to be to win the Olympics, win a marathon, or even finish a marathon.

It doesn’t have to be to lose 50lbs, or 20lbs, or 5.

It doesn’t have to be a big deadlift or a CrossFit Games ticket or 5% body fat.

But it should be something.

A clear goal is more than a wish. It’s a destination around which the rest of your life will organize. Like dominoes aligning themselves, your thoughts; your actions and, yes, your body, will fall into a straight line.

When you decide to ride 100km for ARCH, for example, you start taking your bike out of the garage on weekends.

You start rallying friends to ride together.

You think about hills and you think about saddles and you learn how to check your own air pressure. You go out for short rides in the evening, and you eat your dinner a bit earlier to make time. You drink a little more water so you don’t come home dry. You eat smaller portions so you don’t feel bad on the hills. You fall asleep because you’re tired. Your life falls into lockstep with the goal you set.

When you decide to do the Hugo Open, you show up at the gym all summer. You don’t let things slide. You think twice before that second beer. You get to bed on time. You eat your protein and skip the cake at 9pm. You do your stretching so that you can exercise again the next day. Your friends stop asking if you’ll go drinking on a Thursday. Your coworkers don’t drop donuts on your desk. Maybe they start bringing a jug of water because they see you doing it…

Distraction is the poison of our age. We eat because we’re bored; we scroll Instagram for an hour because we can’t focus. We caffeinate and carb up to feel happy and then stay up all night because we’re never tired. We respond and react and communicate through emojis, chasing posts and likes and attention, dashing around and never getting anywhere.

Unless we have goals.

Direction is distraction’s antonym.

Direction creates alignment. Alignment enables progress. And progress is what this is all about.