Part II: Obtaining Your Goals (Meeting Your Resolutions)

In last week’s blog, I wrote about obtaining your goals/meeting your resolutions by putting structures in place to support you in the areas where you find yourself to be weakest in respect to will power and motivation. In this week’s blog, I’m continuing to write about obtaining your goals, but doing so by applying another method, reframing, on top of the structures you’ve already put in place.

The idea of reframing is not new to many. In fact, it’s used quite a bit by psychologists, therapists, and those who practice neuro-linguistic programming. And, the concept of reframing is simple enough for anyone to use in everyday life. Here, of course, I will be writing about using it for the purpose of obtaining your goals.

The simplest way to break down the concept of reframing is to look at it as “putting a new spin on a familiar concept.” We automatically reframe certain things in our lives – like changing our concept about someone whom we thought we would not like and then coming to find out that we have a lot in common with that individual. When we have the new realization, we naturally place that individual into a different category in our minds – a category that includes people we like. As we grow up, many of us reframe ideas about the foods we like and dislike, altering our perceptions to coincide with the altering of our tastebuds. So, the process of reframing is not new to any of us, and in fact, is used by all of us – albeit not always as a conscious act.

However, you can utilize this process consciously to help in obtaining your goals. For example, if you were working on developing a new habit of exercising every day, at some point (or at several points), you might be tempted to not go to the gym and your mind may automatically begin to think about all of the things you’re giving up in order to workout. You may think about how nice it would be to just be able to sit and relax in front of the T.V., to sit down and read a good book, or even to be able to run errands during that time rather than losing your personal down-time. This is where you can use reframing to your advantage. To reframe this, you can simply turn your thinking around to look at what you’re gaining instead of what you’re giving up.

When you think about all of the things you’re giving up, you’re fighting an up-hill mental battle that’s going to be difficult for you to win. Giving in to that mentality for even one day isn’t an option when you’re creating a new habit. You must be successful for 21-30 days consecutively in order to instill your new habit. Therefore, you need to change your thinking, choosing to concentrate your thoughts on what you are achieving, or what you’ll obtain, by continuing to exercise. Look at what you’ve visualized as the end-result of you obtaining that goal, whether it’s a healthier body, a slimmer body, or a body that’s capable of doing more than it has in the past.

Instill in yourself the habit of thinking about your goal, or its benefits, first thing in the morning before you get out of bed. And instill the same habit as the last thing you think about at night before you go to bed. Reward yourself, mentally, each night by complementing yourself for achieving your goal that day and adding another successful day to your new habit. Before long, with the proper structures in place and a bit of reframing to remind yourself of what you’re getting vs. what you’re giving up, you’ll find that you’ve successfully instilled, as a habit, your new resolution.

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Copyright ©2011.  All rights reserved.

Part I: Obtaining Your Goals (Meeting Your Resolutions)

As we are now over midway into the first month of the new year, I suspect that many who made New Year’s Resolutions have already been tempted to give up on their goals at least once or twice. It’s no easy task to form a new habit – especially one that requires work and dedication. Because of this, I’m writing this two-part blog about reaching your goals. These blogs apply to any goal that one sets – not just New Year’s Resolutions.

Researchers tell us that forming a new habit takes daily implementation of that practice for a period of 15 – 21 days while some believe that more lasting results are the result of a 28-day repetition of that new practice. Whatever the true number is for you, I think it’s safe to say that in order to succeed in repeating a new behavior daily for 15 – 28 days takes much more than just pure will power!

Most of us are driven to our goals because of our own desires for change – whether that’s related to a specific trait or characteristic we want to develop or the result of being fed-up with the way our lives or bodies look. Regardless of the reason(s) we want to change, it’s not a lack of discipline which ultimately determines whether or not we reach our objective of creating a new habit or behavior. Instead, I’d like for you to consider that your success or failure is ultimately the result of the structures that you put in place to support your new habit. And, the lack of structures, or lack of adequate structures, is was precipitates not achieving that goal.

So, what is a structure? A structure is anything (e.g. process, system, support person) that you put in place in order to help you achieve your goals. People who succeed in their endeavors aren’t simply stronger-willed than you or even more dedicated or ambitious. People who succeed are those who have learned their limitations and are honest with themselves when it comes to knowing what they will or won’t do of their own accord. Successful people look at the areas in which they are weak and put support structures in place in order to aid them in overcoming those areas of weakness.

As an example, let’s say that you’ve decided to change your nutrition program. And, the parts of that change that will be difficult for you are: (1) giving up sweets, (2) not eating processed foods, and (3) eating every two hours of your waking day. In order to support your goal, your structures should be put in place prior to the first day of your new routine. Some of the support structures that you could put in place might be: (1) going through your kitchen and giving away (or getting rid of) all foods that have sugar in them, any sweeteners, and any processed foods, (2) talking to those who live with you (or are closest to you) about your goal, why you want to achieve it, and making a request of them to ask you specific questions or use specific wording to support you when you are feeling weak and wanting to give in or quit, & (3) adding reminders to your calendar to eat at your specific 2-hour intervals of every day. You may even find that to ultimately be successful you need to prepare your foods a day in advance or even on the weekends in advance of the week.

Ultimately, finding the structures that will support you through the areas in which you know yourself to be weakest will be the foremost thing you can do to ensure success for your new behavior. And to accomplish the act of getting the appropriate structures in place, you must begin with being honest about what you will or will not do on your own. Honestly take a look at the areas where you feel weak. Also, take a look at what has caused you to fail to obtain goals in your past. Then put structures in place around these areas in order to support you for the first 30 days of your new routine. After that, your structures may be altered or dropped altogether, depending on how well you are doing at that time.

Next week, I’ll be posting Part II of obtaining your goals. But don’t wait until then to re-establish your broken resolutions. Support structures will carry you through the majority of any issues that you will face in achieving your new habit or behavior. So be brave and resolute in seeing your newly desired habit reinstated. In the wise words of Mary Pickford, “…this thing we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down.”

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Copyright ©2011.  All rights reserved.

Evaluating our Actions Based on Goals

As you can see, I haven’t been very effective at keeping my blogs up-to-date in the last few months. But since I turned another year older today, I felt it a great reason to log on and blog. I am now celebrating my 40th year on this great planet of ours and I feel freer, healthier, and happier than I have ever been in my life. And I believe that each year will only get that much better for me.

Now I don’t normally make New Year’s Resolutions. I have nothing against them. They’re just not my personal style. I’m not saying that I never have nor ever will. But at this point in my life they just don’t do it for me. However, I am continuously re-evaluating my life and creating intentions for where I want to be in 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, and 10 years. I do this periodically as well as just checking in with myself from time-to-time to see what’s missing in my life, what I would like more of, what I would like less of…like that.

It’s a kind of, checking my course type of thing - in the same way that the captains of ships and pilots of planes need to periodically re-evaluate their headings to determine if they are still on course or if adjustments need to be made. If we wait too long to re-evaluate our direction, and we find that we have veered off course, the adjustments we have to make end up being bigger ones that are more time-consuming and require more effort. Smaller adjustments are easier and less invasive.

But regardless of when you have made resolutions, or set intentions or goals for your life, there is a really simple method we can use to re-evaluate where we are in life and to determine if we’re on course. This is a simple exercise that requires a pen or pencil and a piece of paper. But I promise you it will be worth the whole 3 minutes of time invested for you to do this exercise. My guarantee is that this exercise may be very eye-opening for you but only if you do it as designed. If you just read through the exercise and try to do it in your mind, I can positively guarantee that you will not get the same value out of the exercise. So, are you ready?

     1. Make a list of the things that consume the majority of your time.

     2. Next, make a list of the things which you are committed to pursuing (in the present) for your life.

     3. Finally, make a list of the things to which you really are committed. Consider that if being committed were a function of how we give of ourselves in time and money, to what things are your time &  money being given? These things, then, represent that to which you are really committed.

After completing the above exercise, look over your answers. Do the items in your 3rd list look the same as those in your 2nd list? Do the items in your 1st list prohibit you from working towards things listed in your 2nd list?

Are there things you listed in step 1 that you want to alter or altogether stop? Are there things you listed in step 3 that you want to alter or discontinue?

If there were a lot of variances for you (and many times there are), don’t make it an opportunity to get down on yourself. The opportunity here is to look at your relationship to commitment.
Do you esteem your commitments as worthy of pursuit? Do you seem to continuously experience difficulty following through on your commitments?

Now, look over the items you listed in step 3 again. Are there any things on there that have a particular hold on you? Maybe you want to not spend so much time or money in an area listed there but you find that you continue doing it over and over again.

If you were to consider the definition of addiction as “having the need for anything outside of yourself to make you feel whole or complete,” would you consider any of the items you listed on step 3 to be addictions? As humans, we’re very good at having addictions in all sorts of areas. Of course we hear about people who are addicted to alcohol, nicotine, drugs, or even sex. But what we really don’t talk about is that there are so many other addictions less graphic in nature. For instance, you could be addicted to shoplifting, addicted to watching television, or addicted to needing a boyfriend/girlfriend. These three addictions are no different from any other classification of addiction. Every addiction is initially driven by a closely-related unmet need within yourself. Looking for something, or someone, outside of yourself to give you a sense of meaning and fulfillment will always fall short of providing you what you desire. This is because your ultimate desire is to be at one with yourself – to be at peace. The idea of atonement is the concept of being at one-ment. External things used to try and fill these unmet needs will always fall short and will always reappear – either in the same form or possibly with a new pattern of addiction.

Take this opportunity as a stepping stone to recommit to what’s important to you. Use this opportunity to discontinue engaging in activities that take you away from achieving those things to which you are committed and to use that time, energy, and money towards what it is you want to accomplish in life.

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Copyright ©2010.  All rights reserved.