Are You Moving the Goal Posts?

Lately, several clients have complained that they “move the goal posts.”

Whatever they achieve - PR, finish, age group award, podium finish - should have made them happy, confident at ultras, and changed the way they feel about themselves. But when they get there, they decide the next, bigger goal will do it instead. 

In other words, you keep raising expectations higher and higher.

But wait, isn’t that what you’re supposed to be doing - never settling, testing your limits, staying hungry, always reaching for higher goals?

Yes, but moving the goal posts isn’t that.

It’s changing the criteria for success, either once the goal is met or while you’re working to achieve it, so you never actually achieve it.

“I’ll feel like a real ultrarunner when I finish a 50k. No, a 50-mile. No, a 100k. No, a 100-mile. No, a harder 100-mile. No, a bigger 100-mile. No, a 200…”

Moving the goal posts doesn’t happen because you’re trying to achieve your full potential. It happens because you unconsciously don’t want to achieve success. 

If you keep raising expectations, you can never live up to them.

The goalpost stays a moving target that can never be met.

You prevent yourself from succeeding, not because you can’t - but because the goal post keeps moving.

Why on earth would you do this to yourself? 

Because believing something new you want to believe about yourself can be surprisingly uncomfortable. It feels safer and more comfortable to stay the same person you’ve grown used to believing you are, than to step into being someone more successful.

Moving the goalposts happens when you’re not willing to believe in yourself as a 100-mile finisher, real ultrarunner, elite athlete, someone who’s reaching his full potential - whatever you want to believe about yourself.

You want proof. Enough race result proof. And there’s never enough to make you believe when you’re not willing to do your part to believe, so you never let yourself arrive.

It’s easier to keep judging yourself than believe in yourself.

So you keep setting the bar higher and the cycle continues until you burn out and quit running ultras…or stop the cycle.

The first part of getting out of this cycle is noticing that you’re doing it.

You can tell you’re moving the goal posts by the way your goal-setting feels.

Upleveling your goals will feel exciting, maybe a little scary or intimidating, but irresistible. Like you’re seeing what you can do. Overall - positive.

Moving the goalpost will feel dissatisfying, not that fun, not enough, and tinged with unworthiness. Like you’re hoping but not believing this will make you feel good about yourself as an ultrarunner. Overall - negative.

If you do find you’re moving the goal posts, the long term solution is increasing your capacity for success.

Practice celebrating yourself for your reaching your current goal, even if you have to tolerate feeling uncomfortable about owning your success at the same time.

Practice being proud of your race, even if it’s not perfect. 

Practice accepting praise about your race instead of dismissing it, diminishing it, or discounting it.

Practice believing what you want to believe about yourself, whether or not you have race result proof to make it believable.

Your own success can be hard to accept.

Hard, but not impossible.

Pay attention and you can get better at accepting your success as you take on bigger challenges.

And if you’re moving the goal posts, never letting the success sink in, I can help.

Email me and let’s talk how.

You deserve to 100% own your success now, not someday.