Gooooooooaaal

It's pretty obvious to say that it feels good to meet or exceed goals. Actually it feels incredible, and it shows you your capability as a person.

To me almost all goals are simply a challenge of will-power. My father approached difficult classes in college with the attitude of "I'm smart, and if it's physically possible for a human being to learn this and pass this class, then I will do it." Admittedly, that attitude has gotten me through a lot more situations than I expected it would.

Today I went swimming after taking a week off while my mother was away. I was still metabolizing tequila from last night, and at first my body was not too happy about being stuffed into a swimsuit and dragged through water. Still, I had goals for myself this week, and damned if I wasn't going to make them.

People who actually swim regularly will laugh hysterically at how small my goals were, but this week I wanted to swim a straight 100 meters of freestyle, which is four lengths of the pool without stopping. This is a very small distance if you're in any kind of shape, but I just started swimming again two weeks ago and my lifestyle has been, well, mostly sedentary the past few years. I've been able to swim 100's of breaststroke no problem, and while I could force myself through 100's of free, I couldn't really do it with any kind of finesse or grace.

But today, I did it. And it was actually pretty easy. I think I've broken the same barrier as I did in the first week when I worked to get back into swimming straight 50's. I also found this inner strength today, where instead of slogging through the lengths, I was challenging myself to go faster and work harder at what I was doing. I would say to my mother "So this will be the last 50?" and I would swim with everything I had, trying to use up the last reserves of my energy. Afterwards, she would say she could go for another and so I pushed myself even harder.

At the end, my face was hot and my heart was pounding, and every muscle felt fantastic. The body knows what it wants, and I'm finally in a place where I'm capable of working it the way it deserves. I know it is purely a question of mental fortitude and having a good attitude about it.

I was thinking about other goals in life I want to attain and the extent to which swimming, and the discipline I'm gaining from it, can really help. And I will confess, it was also exciting to think about losing weight and getting in better shape for (ahem) dating.

In short, for the first time in a pretty long time, I'm actually proud of myself. It feels damn good to set and meet manageable goals, and I like seeing visible progress. I'm gonna keep it up.