As much as we don’t always like to admit it, we’ve all failed in achieving a few (ahem, a lot of) goals. Whether it’s the January 1st promises of I will lose 10kgs by June or the wishful-thinking I will write a book this year, we’ve all fallen short at least once or twice.
The good news is that its not necessarily your fault. It’s just that your system is working against you.
The problem with goal setting is that it is dependent on a predicted outcome. Whilst that is possible for some things (at next Monday’s office meeting, I will request a raise/On Friday night I will ask out that cute guy at the bar – NB: it is worth noting that in these scenarios, the goal is an ACTION, not an OUTCOME), for many things, we have absolutely no control over them.
Let’s take weight loss as an example. Whilst we may WANT to ~lose 10kgs by June~, aside from putting in the right “Ingredients” of exercising regularly and eating well, we still cannot count on a specific outcome. Sure, you may lose some weight, but you are not able to predict with certainty that you will, in fact, lose 10kgs by June. When it becomes apparent that you will not be able to achieve the goal, you may feel defeated and give up completely.
What is a far better methodology to take is to instead focus on building habits. YES, HABITS. It may sound like micromanaging, and it may feel like you’re losing track of the bigger picture, but for many people, myself included, taking it one day at a time, and focusing on improving my overall behaviour, will get you much farther than focusing only on your end goal. Instead of chanting ~10kg, 10kg, 10kg~ over and over to yourself, instead try ~Today I will exercise for 30 minutes, and eat 3 cups of vegetables with lunch and dinner~. That way, your lofty goal of 10kg weight loss is broken down into a simple checklist that you can complete daily. You can add as many things to your daily checklist as you need, but to start with I recommend 3 habits, and then building on those once you have them down-pat.
If you apply this methodology to each of your goals, and break them down into habits instead, by the end of the year you might have accomplished them all, without even realizing 😉
