Falling Short of Your Goals

Earlier this month I ran the Chicago Marathon. It was my fifth marathon finish and one of my favorite races in my hometown. As a longtime endurance athlete, I had high hopes going into the race. My training was spot on and I was fit and healthy. I was aiming for a personal best and knew that I could do it. However, it turned out not to be my day. I was happy to finish (it’s still a marathon!) and proud of myself that I didn’t give up despite not feeling great, but somewhat disappointed that I fell short of my goal. Whether in sport or business, most of us have had instances where outcomes don’t match our goals or expectations. From a campaign that doesn’t resonate with its audience, pitches that don’t result in media coverage, events that aren’t well attended and the list goes on. Falling short of your goals is always disheartening but I think that it gives us an opportunity to learn from the experience and adjust our approaches to make our next attempt even better than the last. When a campaign or tactic wasn’t successful, I like to research “The Why” behind it: Was it poor timing? Not targeted at the correct audience? Did our messaging resonate? What do the metrics tell us? What was successful? By examining the factors contributing to the campaign as a whole it helps you figure out new tactics and a more targeted approach moving forward. Albert Einstein once said, “Failure is success in progress,” so keep learning from your misses and soon enough success will come.