Further to my blog of October 30 about the essential characteristics of goals, I've had a lot of people write to let me know what the R and T of SMART stand for (the other letters being Specific, Measurable and Achievable).
But as with many things in life, opinions vary.
The most popular suggestion was for Realistic and Time-driven - which are indeed important, but Realistic is similar to Achievable, and Time-driven could be part of Specific.
So I've chosen to go with an alternative suggestion sent in by Claire Sutcliffe - Rewarding and Tactical. As I understand these, they mean...
Rewarding: it's important to know WHY you want to achieve your goal. I realized this on the Atlantic, when there were days (99% of them) when I wanted to be anywhere else but on a tiny little tippy boat in the middle of a hostile ocean. But I knew that if I persevered, I would be taking a major step towards the kind of life I wanted. And that if I gave up, I would find it very difficult to ever find a sponsor for any future adventures I wanted to undertake.
So in the overall scheme of things, this made my short-term trials and tribulations much easier to bear.
Tactical: the short-term steps that you need to take in order to achieve your goal. On the Atlantic it took me a while to grasp this concept. I really, really wanted to get to Antigua - and fast. But I couldn't get myself across 3000 miles of ocean by just wishing. I had to make the connection between present actions and future outcome. Skipping a rowing shift was not going to get me there quickly. I had to get onto that rowing seat and keep sticking my oars in the water.
Same thing now - if I exercise every day and watch what I eat, I will reach my goal, but the long-term strategy has to be broken down into short-term tasks. The longest journey starts with a single step.
And, I'm happy to say, the tactics are going pretty well. I've been looking after myself, training consistently, improving my diet, and also exploring other ways to nurture health, strength and wellness.
Today, for example, I went to see Deepa Gleason, a professional healer specializing in acupuncture. I don't know quite what I was expecting, but when I got there, realized that Deepa was not it. Although her cozy office abounds with the paraphernalia of various spiritual practices and therapies, Deepa herself is refreshingly down-to-earth with an enormous sense of fun. And she's good - after half an hour of lying face-down on a couch with needles sticking out of my back and ankles, I wafted out of there feeling thoroughly rejuvenated, as if I'd just had the best sleep of my life.
If the Chinese invented acupuncture, why on earth do some of them think they need shark fin soup to (allegedly) make them strong and healthy?
[photo: me with Deepa Gleason]
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Last night I went to the Roxie Cinema in San Francisco to see Sharkwater, a new documentary due to open in cinemas on November 2 (click on the link to see the trailer).
It is the first documentary film by Rob Stewart, and draws attention to the practice of shark-finning, in which sharks are caught on long lines and hauled aboard the fishing vessel where their fins are cut off. The mutilated shark, still alive, is then returned to the ocean where it sinks helplessly to the bottom and, unable to swim to keep the water moving over its gills, slowly drowns.
The reason for this practice? So that people can dine on shark fin soup, considered an exotic and power-enhancing delicacy in some cultures.
An estimated 100 MILLION sharks are killed in this way every year.
I am not a vegetarian (although I do eat organic and free range as much as possible, even though it is unfortunately much more expensive to do so), but even to a meat-eater shark-finning seems barbaric. If we are going to kill animals for their flesh, we at least owe them the courtesy of using every last part of the carcass. Nature abhors waste. The natural food chain can seem brutal, at least most predators eat every morsel of their prey.
Although humans generally regard themselves as more civilized than other animals, there ARE times when I really wonder...
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Getting fit can be an expensive business. New running shoes last week - and bathroom scales this week. I decided the "bathroom mirror" measurement was too subjective - my body-image perception has become so warped that I can (in my eyes) go from obese to trim overnight.
So on the principle that objectives should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, and two other things that I can't remember) I splashed out on a set of Tanita scales that measure not only weight, but also bodyfat %, body water %, muscle mass, and bone mass. Also, humiliatingly, it will tell you what your 'metabolic age' is, and give you a 'physique rating' as a mark out of 10.
I scored a mere 5/10 this morning, but as I see it, that gives me plenty of room for improvement, and measurable improvement is a powerful motivator.
Am I over-obsessing about my weight? Quite possibly. But it matters to me that I a) feel good in my own skin, and b) convey a positive image of the benefits of an active lifestyle. So it is almost part of my job description to be fit and look fit.
Although I think that maybe I do go on about it too much. The journalist who wrote an article in last Sunday's Observer about me picked up on it - but has also written a really good, thoughtful analysis. As Nicole, my friend and PR coordinator said, "It's one of the first interviews I've seen that sincerely tries to get to the heart of what motivates Roz to do what she does!"
Read it here.
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One of the things I love about my lifestyle is that I never know who I'm going to meet next.
Yesterday I got a text from Mark Featherstone (who I had first met in Devon a couple of weeks ago, but had previously nearly met in mid-Pacific - see my blog for Oct 9) to say he was in San Francisco to check up on Cheyenne, Steve Fossett's record-breaking catamaran, and would I like to see the boat?
I certainly would, so I turned up at the dock in Alameda and Mark showed me around. The Cheyenne is an amazing craft - although her overall dimensions are huge, her twin hulls are like knife blades, designed to scythe through the water, so the living space below decks is minimal - no more than a few feet wide and extremely spartan. My rowboat, the Brocade, is almost on a par comfort-wise, but cost several million dollars less and goes an awful lot slower.
The tour over, we went down to a local beach to watch a former Cheyenne crew member and a group of colleagues test out a conceptual 'kite' boat. This is an extension of the relatively new sport of kitesurfing, which in turn evolved from windsurfing. Check out the kiteboat website to find out more. The idea (as far as I could gather) is that when the winds at sea level are too slight, by using a kite instead of a sail you can take advantage of stronger winds a few hundred feet up.
After a mobile phone call to the crew, I was offered the opportunity to join them. I wasn't exactly dressed for the occasion, but took off my boots and jeans and waded out into the shallow water in my underwear to clamber on board. It's not often I introduce myself to a group of total strangers (all male) wearing my undies (that's me wearing the undies, not the strangers), but nobody seemed too bothered. They were too preoccupied with trying to keep the huge kite aloft to notice some random underclad female stowaway.
The boat is still very much a prototype, but I've since seen impressive video footage of the same crew using a kite in conjunction with an outrigger canoe, skimming at high speed across the waves in Hawaii. We went at a relatively sedate pace in the light Alameda winds yesterday, but the concept definitely has mileage.
Not for me, though - I'll stick to my oars.
[photo: launching the kite from the beach. These guys had wetsuits. I didn't.]
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