It can be really exciting as well as daunting to set a big hairy audacious goal, something that takes you well out of your comfort zone and challenges you to push yourself beyond what you would regard as being your usual limits.

That’s exactly what I’ll be doing on May 22nd when I’ll be taking part in the Classic Quarter, a 44 mile ultramarathon along the Cornish coastal from Lizard Point to Lands End.

So how have I ended up with this particular big hairy audacious goal?

In February 2019 I was a speaker at a business event. The headline speaker was a guy called Jim Lawless who concept was called ‘Taming Tigers’ which is all about pushing yourself out of your comfort zone.

Prior to listening to Jim speak I had been thinking of running a 3rd marathon in 2021 to recognise a landmark birthday. Listening to Jim I realised that wasn’t a big enough challenge.

As I’m being introduced to the 130 odd delegates in the afternoon I found myself announcing I was going to run the 2021 Classic Quarter.

I did hear that the best way to complete a challenge is to talk about it a lot. So I branded my challenge ’44@60’, I launched a podcast, set up a page on my website detailing all the training and then at the start of 2021 launched a fundraising campaign to raise £100/mile for the music therapy programme run by Children’s Hospice South West.

So what I learnt so far?

Like most things in life you want to be successful you have to prepare, plan and practice.

As I write this I’m a few weeks away from the event and over the last two years I’ve racked up well over 300 training runs and over 2000 miles, and I’m also a long way down the road to achieving my fundraising goal.

So if you want to motivate yourself and/or your team then set a big hairy audacious goal or BHAG for short.

It will create a sense of excitement as well as no doubt some fear as well.

It will be a bit of a rollercoaster journey but overall probably quite exhilarating.

So what’s your BHAG going to be?

You can find out more about my 44@60 journey here: https://www.trevorleemedia.co.uk/44-60/