This is the month-end episode; that means an update on goals. This month I’m going to review my goals from the perspective of being vs. doing. Many of us believe that if we are not getting the results we are looking for it means we have to work harder. Although there are some cases where this might be true I believe, especially in this community of go-getting women, more often than not it means we have to shift who we are being as we take action toward our goals. It’s more than just “work smarter not harder” but that can be a part of it too. It’s about the attitude you bring, your self-awareness and your presence as you do what needs to be done. Or – hold onto your hats – it’s who you are being as you step back and allow others to take action on your behalf. I’ll go through each of my goals and explain it more as I talk about the progress or lack of progress I’ve made in the past month. May was a busy month with The Accomplished Intensive wrapping up the first week, The Maine Women’s Conference happening the second week, a slew of corporate training in the third week and all the meetings that could not happen in the 2nd and 3rd weeks landing in the fourth week of May. Even with all the craziness I feel like I’ve made progress and it definitely has helped to keep my goals top of mind even as I’m working on other things. Goal #1 Build more strength and endurance The original goal for strength and endurance was to do 300 Spartan-regulation burpees in good form in one session by June 30 but I completed that in February. My burpee goal is now at 1000 burpees. Separately, I have a goal to do an unassisted pull-up before the end of this year. I have not done a great job of incorporating the pull-ups into my workout so I’m adding a task to my calendar each day to prompt me to at least do a few assisted pull-ups with the band. As of the day I’m recording this episode I have completed doing 600 Spartan-regulation burpees (chest to ground) in good form in one workout session. Doing so many burpees in one workout each week has been a little hard on my body. I recently remembered that when I was training for the marathon the program I used had the long run scheduled every other week and on the weeks in between the distance would be half what the previous long run was. For instance, if my long run of 14 miles happened today, next week I would run 7, and the week after I would run 16 miles and the week after that it would be 8. After I remembered that I decided that is how I am going to do my burpee workouts. Rather than add 25 burpees to my workout session each week I’ll add 50 burpees every other week and half the burpees on the weeks in between. This will give my body more time to recover after pushing my wall. I did 600 burpees in one session 2 weeks ago, 300 last week and this week I’ll do 650. This is an example of working smarter. The added benefit of doing these halved workouts on the weeks in between is I can compare my current time with my original time. For instance, when I did 300 burpees in February it took me 56:36. Last week it took me 52:22, shaving 4:14 off my time. That felt good to see and showed the progress I’ve made with my fitness. Another thing that has made a difference in my workouts was my mentality. Who I “Be” during my workouts is “this is happening and I’m lucky I have the ability to do this many burpees.” This impacts my presence creating one of calm confidence as I’m doing the burpees. Full transparency: this is not the presence I wake up that morning. I’m usually feeling a little anxious about what I’m going to put myself through. But if you’ve ever trained for an endurance event you know how critical it is to have a positive frame of mind. Did you know your body responds to your frame of mind? When I work out, if I start thinking about the things that are stressing me out or my mind starts floating toward negative thoughts I immediately have a harder time catching my breath and my muscles start to cramp up.