Awesome responses everyone. Thank you.
What stands out most is that I probably take things way too literally: someone saying they want to achieve X doesn’t mean that’s ALL they want, it’s what they want now. When they’ve achieved that, they may well want something more. Which makes perfect sense, and I just go jumping to conclusions about them only wanting X and nothing more. Which is stupid.
You guys always help me get my head straight.
We have a five year old. Shift work sucks in some ways, but in others it helps. Ten hours would be an absolute upper limit for me, though, even so. I probably spend no more than six hours a week training.
I’m a lot like @The_Myth in that my goals change frequently. Part of it is that my view of reality might be limited. Thanks to this place it’s evolving (just like @littlesleeper said).
Constructive feedback and cheap shots from folks like @brady888 has pushed me out of my comfort zone and opened my mind to new goals.
There’s that fluid thing again.
I’m more of a life enhancement type of lifter. It’s supposed to improve my quality of life. I’m not willing to put everything else aside to pursue anything training related. I can’t be like Jim Wendler.
My goals remain 3/4/5 plates. Not lofty, but they’ll be big for me. Once I get there my goal will change to maintaining those and getting to where they’re my any day of the week numbers.
After that, I don’t know. Probably more maintenance as my life evolves and I’m attending the kids’ games and events.
I’ll be tagging along here! After being told my goal numbers are achievable through CrossFit I really have no reason not to do it…except boxes don’t have daycare yet. So I have a few years to hit my goals the old fashioned way and then turn myself into Matt Fraser.
Edit: I don’t understand people who compete for the sake of competing. I get it for your first or second attempt before your start chasing records or the podium. But I don’t understand doing it just to say you did it and making no attempt to win. This applies to bodybuilding as well.
That’s exactly how I feel about mine. Except you put it better.
Woke at 219.1 lbs, looking decent but a little puffy. That’s almost entirely due to the shittest sleep I’ve had in a while. Feeling OK though.
I shoot for openings, gotta aim low since it may be hard to reach your chin 
I thought the minute I started using drugs that I could get to whatever size I wanted.
Crossfit joke here hahaha no but seriously about your day care thing they have smaller bars right? If your kid cant walk yet surely he can bench?
What is this Crossfit talk I keep seeing posts about?
I think there are varying levels of commitment and “craziness” (having goals is not crazy, but like what a lot of serious people here do training wise versus the average gym brah). Some people just want to do some lifting since it’s fun and lifting normally makes you feel a lot better afterwards.
Some people are super goal oriented and get the fun put of the result and not the process. I am a goal oriented person myself, so I am fine hating my training sometimes and being in pain all the time leading up to hitting a goal as long as I can get that goal and get out of that pain with some rest after hitting my goal.
Think of golfing, there are some people who just want to get toasted and hit a ball around for a few hours and then there are people who want to lower their handicap. Both get enjoyment out of it, but the road to that enjoyment is very different.
There was a little back and forth here
Ok, so I’ve had about three hours sleep.
Today’s training
First up, a beep test for a job I really fucking want. Needed to get 7.1, got told to stop at 7.3 and I was only just getting into my stride. I reckon I’d have gotten to mid level 8 at least.
Then to the gym
Pull-ups (8, just to prove I can at 219 lbs) and hand release push-ups (10)
Wide grip bench press (pointer finger on rings)
A bunchxbar
A bunchx88 lbs
20x132 lbs
21x132 lbs because I can’t count
Leg drive felt snappy today
DB flys
3x10x45 lbs
Dips
3x10 at bodyweight - lockout from rep seven was hard AF on each set
DB military press
10x55 lbs
2x10x50 lbs
DB rows
3x12x120 lbs
Diamond push-ups
3x10 - different
Weighted sit-ups
3x10 with 44 lbs
No gas today, took an hour and 25 minutes
To your earlier rant, I think the interesting question I got from it was whether the goals we set ourselves are actually hard enough. There are lots of us on here chasing 2 3 4 or 3 4 5 but the question is whether that is actually too easy. Does setting limits with our short or long term goals actually limit our potential and in some cases mean we don’t push hard enough? Most people agree that if they train with other like minded and stronger lifters or have a coach then they improve at a faster pace. Does that mean all of us who train alone and set a goal are robing ourselves of potential gains ?
Another of you expressing what I wanted to say better than I did…
Depends of the goal you set and at which point in life you set it.
If you’re a 20 year old male who comes to the gym for the first time hitting a 100 lbs squat and finding it was tough, if you set your eyes at doing 125 lbs within a year, you might rob yourself some improvement.
If you’re 50 year old dude lifting for the past 30 year and at 40 year set a record breaking total on the podium at became the champion of the world, no way you at 50 year can beat that total.
At 50 year old you would have to set a new goal, and if you still competed, which were the initial rant
that PL would look at the competition and he would have to settled for winning the price and setting an age group record.
But he would probably be to beat up to even compete.
Jim Wendler put it like this in his books
“Sure, I could waddle up to the monolift and squat, but I couldn’t do anything else. Really, all I could do was squat, bench, and deadlift.”
This is what it is all about and CT put it too in another article about being an older lifter.
So at a point in life you have to change the goal of being the World Champion.
Put until that, if you compete and have the genetics to be very very strong the commitment and the backup then one should have the eye on that elusive world record.
But when you’re several hundred pounds away, you have to set eye on a smaller goal.
You have to say the next competition I have to have put x lbs to my total and for the next 8 months x more lbs so in 8 years I’ll have a shot at the WR.
For those of us who doesn’t compete (because we’re to weak) chasing a smaller goal like 2,3,4 plates or for the guys a bit stronger 3,4,5 plates is why we come to the gym to try to achieve a small goal. If I didn’t have my small goal I don’t think I would lift. I would do something else like run or do a triathlon, but I would have a goal of doing it as fast as i could.
Knowing I would never reach my former speed is probably why I do not do it, and why former WC and record holders don’t compete anymore, they know what they did and feel sorry for them self that they can’t do it anymore.
Sorry for the long rant here Mark, but I got carried away.
All this has really made me think about what I wanted to put across. I think I stuffed it up in parts, and the biggest omission I made (and arguably that skewed a lot of my message) was that I take smaller, incremental goals as so integral to the end goal as to not be worth mentioning (stupid).
Yes, I think @simo74 put it best by saying I generally think goals should be higher; but those goals obviously will need you to pass milestones along the way. Those are the incremental goals, as crawling and walking are to running.
Case in point, my bench is pitiful. I was, for quite a while, obsessed with getting 300 lbs and/or three plates. I got 302 lbs on three occasions. One was a smooth lift, the other touch and go grinds. On each occasion I was unable to build on that. It bugged me, and mentally it was a real issue when I benched and trained bench.
Then I decided to stop worrying about my pitiful bench and become a decent bencher, and aim for 400 lbs. Along the way I’ll need to hit 300 lbs, an( 320 lbs, and 380 lbs…
They’re all goals, except they aren’t anything I’m focusing my training on because they’re just part of that trainjng.
Woke at 219.8 lbs, looking decent. Somewhat better sleep too.
Should have rounded that to 220 sounds so much more swole !! Lol
Really, 100kg. Much mo betta that 219.8, and probably more accurate with respect to the goals, the goals, the goals.
Congrats brother.
-Most if not all world class athletes use goal setting.
-Most if not all world class athletes have a quality coach.
-I dont think there is anything wrong with setting a goal like I want this record, or that record.
-All world class athletes spend more than 10 hours weekly on their sport of choice, at least in season.
-Look up the definition of world class.
-You are hardcore Mark.
-You can kill a person with your stare.
-Your smile is akin to a box of kittens and puppies, only better.
-Perhaps I never understood your question so resorted to paying you compliments so you wouldn’t kill me in my sleep 
Aw shucks 