What we aim for isn’t always the thing that will get us what we truly desire.
This applies to a lot of places in life but I’ll offer an example in my fitness and health.
My Apple Watch gives me 3 rings to close each day. If you’re unfamiliar, these are the metrics:
- Move Ring: a measure of calories expended through movement or other criteria.
- Workout Minutes: a tracking of how many minutes you exercised during the day.
- Stand Hours: the number of hours in which you stand and move around for at least a couple of minutes.
I close these rings daily.
In addition, my watch gives me a monthly challenge each month.
I often complete the challenge.
I do this even though I am aware that closing my rings doesn’t actually mean I’m moving my body enough or getting the type of movement that I need.
Closing my rings could give me a false sense of accomplishment without actually moving me towards my goal.
The rings measure important metrics. It’s crucial to move your body, to exercise, and to stand throughout the day.
Without the stand goal metric I can be prone to getting so immersed in a task that I sit for hours.
That said, there’s a crucial part of my health and fitness that isn’t tracked by my watch. There’s a ring missing.
Sleep.
I do not get enough sleep. And that impairs a lot of functions related to my health in all realms: physical, emotional, mental, spiritual.
Goals can be helpful to achieving what we desire. But if the goals aren’t holistic, if they don’t consider all aspects of the ultimate outcome, then they aren’t useful.
Meeting a specific goal at the expense of an overall outcome isn’t a sustainable long term strategy.
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