“If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” Yogi Berra
We love the cheekiness and simplicity of this quote. Importantly, it also highlights the next crucial stage of the journey to becoming a healthier you.
Our next two posts are going to focus on goal-setting which is one of the most powerful motivational tools that we have at our disposal. This post will share our philosophy on how to set effective goals and the next will talk to how to build an ongoing routine so that this becomes a part of your everyday life.
Let’s get started.
The words goal-setting typically stir a wide range of emotion. For some it generates a sense of excitement and enthusiasm about planning for the future, for others there’s a sense of caution or trepidation about where to start and for many, there’s a complete lack of understanding at how powerful and valuable it can be.
For those of us looking to make life changing decisions – big or small – goal-setting will become a part of our everyday behaviours and help us achieve the lives we want. Naturally the path to us achieving what we want, whether that’s living a healthier life or any other desire we may have, is being really clear on what this is and how to get there.
If you’ve been exposed to goal-setting before it’s likely you’ve heard of the SMART model. At a high level, it suggests that the most effective goals are those that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely (or subtle variations of such). Whilst we agree in theory that SMART goals are a useful place to start to close the gap between where we are now and where we want to be in the future, they don’t always hit the mark in practical application. This is because even SMART goals are typically directional in nature and focus on output. But when you’re trying to evoke a change in behaviour this isn’t always enough. Instead and particularly when trying to build goal-setting as a habit, we believe that goals need to instructional with an input focus.
Consider these two goals:
- Within the next 3 months I want to lose 2kgs so that I can achieve my ideal body weight
- For the next 3 months I’m going to exercise 4 times a week and limit eating take-away to once a week so that I can achieve my ideal body weight
The first goal is directional and whilst better than nothing, focuses on an end outcome that may not be within your control. For example, you could train consistently and eat really well for that whole period and due to a myriad of factors still not achieve your desired weight loss.
The second goal still looks to achieve the end outcome but provides instruction as to the specific actions that need to be taken to achieve this. More importantly it focuses completely on actions that are within your control and can be objectively measured regardless of other factors.
So what does this look like in action?
We recently achieved a major goal in publishing our website and learnt a powerful lesson around goal-setting in the process.
Whilst we thought we were pretty seasoned at this goal-setting caper and had a clearly articulated goal – to publish the first post on our website within 6 months – it wasn’t until we shifted our goal-setting approach to be more instructional and input driven – to commit 2 hours per week for six months to create a website and write content – that we saw consistent progress and built sustained momentum.
The key take-away for us was that by subtlety shifting to instructional input driven goals, we made major leaps towards achieving what seemed like an almost insurmountable task. Oh and having a goal in the first place was pretty useful too.
So, enough about us and it’s over to you.
This week involves getting really clear on what living a healthier life means to you.
Here’s what we want you to do:
- Give yourself 30 minutes to identify 3-5 things in your life that you’d like to focus on – these can be big, small, short-term, long-term, life-changing or insignificant
- Use this time to think about the first steps you need to take, how long you need to do them for and when an appropriate time to check your progress will be
- Write them down in a notebook or somewhere that you can go back to
Our number 1 piece of advice when doing this activity – apart from taking the time to do it – is to write them down. Writing is proven to use different parts of the brain that helps commit content to memory and evokes an emotional response that is more likely to lead to action. This is one example where computers can’t replicate the human touch.
That’s it for now – we’ll cover the rest next week.
We’re always keen to hear how you’re doing and any ideas you have. Feel free to reach out to us on any of our social media channels.