4 Ways To NAIL Your Goals and Habits in 2019
In a previous post, I talked about setting goals and I said that there are only two reasons why goals fail. One, because the goals have no personal meaning or value to us. And two, which is what we will be talking about today, because of a lack of discipline and direction.
Every year when I talk to people about their new years’ resolutions, I feel like I consistently hear the same - something to do with fitness, something to do with money and some other lifestyle change (take the stairs instead of the lift/elevator/escalator or cut back on drinking or smoking). And every year, most people I know do not manage to keep the goal going past March. So, why do we consistently set a goal of cultivating a habit and fail and what can we do about it? These are the 4 methods that have worked for me over the years!
Don’t Phrase/See Your Goals as Deprivation or Lack
You set a goal saying “don’t eat potato chips”, and you rely on your willpower for as long as possible to refrain from eating chips. What happens? One day you come crashing down with a family sized bag of chips. The number one key with goals is not to see them as just a matter of willpower. You need a “why” power, i.e., why you want to achieve this goal first (which is why you need a goal that has a personal value or meaning to you). The next important thing is not to see it as depriving yourself of things, or like you will be lacking something from your life. If you want to avoid eating chips, set a goal like “instead of mindlessly crunching on chips all the time, I will reach for a fruit”. Or, “I will eat exactly one small sized bag of Lays chips once a month”. So you are allowing yourself to eat the chips, you are just restricting how often you reach for it. Deprivation and lack of feel like punishment. They make you feel like you are being nailed to the crucifix. Which only makes follow through with a goal harder.
Slow and Steady Wins the Race. Surprise, surprise.
Do your goals for January already look like this? :
Meditate everyday
Wake up at 4am
Jog for 30 minutes
No alcohol
Learn French
Read 5 books
Don’t cram Every. Single. One. Of your goals into January! Ease yourself into them! You want to wake up at 4am? Great! But it’s impossible to switch from 9am to 4am in one day! Chances are you have been going to bed at midnight or 1am already so when your alarm goes off at 4am, chances are you’re going to hit snooze, roll over, and fall right back asleep. Or even if you thought it’s a matter of willpower, gritted your teeth and got up, you will fall back to your 9am routine in a matter of time. The more you ease yourself into the goal, get comfortable with it, the more likely you are to sustain your goals. Go from 9am to 830am, 8am, 730am, you get the picture. And when you’re trying to get comfortable with forming one habit, don’t cram ALL the other habits in the world at the same time. Especially if you think they are ALL a matter of willpower. Willpower is a finite amount of source!
Pair Your Goals/Habits
Like wine pairing but better. Another way to ease yourself into goals is to pair them with something you already have. This is especially accurate for the new habits you are trying to cultivate. Now, if you take a look at the previous set of goals/habits that I have listed, I’m sure we can all agree we have set goals/habits like that. Meditate every day? Great! But when? If you do it first thing in the morning as soon as you wake up today, after lunch tomorrow and then during your commute home after work yet another day, you are not forming a structure for your goal and you are less likely to keep up with it. Schedule them in. Having a vague, ambiguous at-any-time-of-the-day makes compliance hard because you are more likely to pull a “I’ll do it after lunch!” “I’ll do it after work!” “I’ll do it after this one episode on Netflix” and next thing you know, you have fallen asleep on your bed in the midst of a Friends marathon with your hand still holding a spoon that’s stuck in a tub of Ben and Jerry’s having never meditated the entire day. Who has ever gone on Netflix and come out of it watching just one episode? We all know this is impossible! So do a “I’ll meditate every day at 8.40am after I have brushed my teeth.” Habits form the framework of our lives so pair them with a pre-existing routine so that it’s easier to follow. And make sure you actually set aside time for your habits so you can actually get them done. Before you know it, it’s going to be intuitive for you to meditate right after brushing your teeth so guess what! Not only have you nailed your goal in meditating every day, you have knocked it out of the park!
Define Your Goals to Work For You
Every year since 2005 I set goals to lose weight. Every year, I failed. Until one day in 2016. I wrote in my planner for 2017 “DROP TO SIZE 10 ALREADY” under my goals. Yes, I wrote that all in capital letters because I was so exasperated with my body. And you know what? I did that year! Not only did I drop to size 10, I even managed to get some things that were in size 8. I NAILED that goal! It was the first time I had accomplished something to do with my physical size after almost a decade of thinking I was never capable of getting smaller. So what changed? From the time I started working out, I felt a couple of things change in my body – I slept better, my posture improved, I learned and understood how to use my core and among these, I was starting to feel like I was getting smaller. So, I just chucked the whole weight system into the bin and never looked at it again. I was a size 12 at the beginning of the year, and I felt like I COULD get to size 10 by the end of the year if I kept up my momentum with my workouts. And guess what? I did! Essentially, there’s no difference between “lose 5 kgs” or “eat healthier” and variations of these and “DROP TO SIZE 10 ALREADY” for me. The goal was to get in better shape. But while “lose 5 kgs” didn’t work, it didn’t mean I was a failure because I was a size 16 once upon a time! There is always more than one pre-determined way to achieve a goal and there is always more than one way to measure success so be sure to try a couple of different things to see what actually works for you.
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