Two weeks ago tomorrow I had knee surgery. It was a meniscectomy and it was pretty basic basic: The doctor went in with a scope and simply cleaned up the torn/frayed/flipped-up section of my meniscus.
As has become my usual routine, before our team ran this morning, I went to rehab. While chatting with our athletic trainer, I mentioned that I’ve been back at Bikram Yoga for the past week (yay!). I inquired as to whether it was OK that I still couldn’t put all of my weight on my knee, and thus, couldn’t complete all of the postures. The trainer asserted that that was totally normal; often times, after a scope on the knee, individuals can’t put their full weight on it for up to 6 weeks.
So, throughout the day today, I became resigned to the fact that I wouldn’t be able to fully complete a yoga class for a while. After a busy day, I finally made it over to class some 13 hours after I had had that “you won’t be able to put weight on your knees for a while” discussion with my trainer.
Sure enough, when it came to the time in class for the postures that are weight bearing on the knees, I did them all with zero problems and zero pain.
I was psyched. And then, something dawned on me: I had just overcome an implicit challenge (“ you won’t be able to put weight on your knees for 6 weeks”) without having ever set a goal to do so.
Lately, I’ve thought long and hard about eschewing my outcome-centric tendencies for a more enjoy-the-process type approach. Tonight was a great example: Tonight, I dragged myself to yoga because it was a long day at work and I needed the escape, the “me” time. Tonight, going to yoga had nothing to do with being the best, or basking in glory, or even fixing a problem. Rather, tonight, going to yoga was simply about setting time aside the time to be at yoga.
And then, in the midst of just being, I had the best class that I’ve had in a long time and broke through the last barrier standing in my way post-surgery (that’d be the weight on the knees). Interesting: the outcome of class was great, but the outcome wasn’t what I went to class for.
This morning, we ran a goal-setting session with our team. We instructed our players to focus on setting SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time sensitive.
As I sit here and consider the bookends of my day – an early morning, structured goal-setting session and a late evening yoga class with no set goal but a positive outcome – I’m left to wonder how living/loving the process, positive outcomes, and striving for specific, measurable goals fit together.
No answers here. But, I think it’s worth pondering.
