New Year resolutions are the toast of humanity. The last week of the month of December, when one is just about recovering from the aftermath of Christmas festivities, is the time ripe for the glorious New Year resolutions to take birth. The energy level is awesome. You seem to be on a diet of steroids. Your inclination to dream up the most incredible goals is at high pitch. In fact, there is a term coined for these goals - Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals! So, you are at peak energy level. However, as New Year's day arrives and very quickly disappears too, reality strikes. And strikes fast. Before you know it January is gone. But worse, you have not got started on any one of those fantastic pledges you made. Your goals remain what they started off as - mere goals. So, what went wrong?
Goal Setting Myths
There is generally a feeling that once you dream up a fantastic goal, your job is done. All you have to do is to bask in the wonders of the results. You rake in the "moolah" or you have achieved nirvana, you have climbed Mount Everest, you have bungee jumped and so on. Wow, what euphoria! Except that you have just had a severe bout of hallucinations! Nothing of the sort actually happened. The money did not come pouring in, you are still the same unhappy soul, you have only seen Mount Everest in pictures and watched others bungee jump. Man, what a let down!
You see, goal setting has great value - no doubt about it. However, the sobering fact is that goals do not get achieved merely by thinking them up although that is a good first step. You have got to have a plan how to achieve those goals with a time frame - in short you need to have a mechanism to achieve those goals.
The Mechanism
So, in effect, goals by themselves do nothing, if not followed up. If anything, your goal which is not backed up by a mechanism to achieve it is going to do more damage than good. You will consider yourself a failure since the goal that you set up in a fit of enthusiasm is actually languishing untouched.
Enter, systems, the magic mechanism which will actually deliver your goals for you.What are systems?
Systems are methodical, regular action steps which carry you inexorably to your goals and targets. They are the cogs in the wheel of goal setting. For
example: say, you set the goal of shedding 5 kilograms of weight in six months. This fantastic act of setting your target is no nearer to accomplishment unless you start zeroing in. Let me explain. For instance, you need to be asking the following questions (not exhaustive) as a minimum:
- How will you achieve your goal of shedding 5 kg of weight over six months?
- Will you lose weight by exercising or controlling your diet or a mix of both?
- If you are going to work out, how many times in a week will you do it and for how long?
- If you are going to control your diet, what specifically are you going avoid?
- How will you know that your plan is working?
and so on and so forth. These are but basic questions. But they are critical if you ever are serious about achieving your goal.
Once you have come up with some form of answers to the above questions,
you have a major hurdle to cross and that is motivating yourself to become weight loss centric. What do I mean by this? It simply means that you must get into the mind set of weight loss which includes avoiding temptation to hit the snooze button when the alarm to wake up early in the morning for work out rings. Or stop eying the oil dripping wafers or chicken meat at meal time.
You see, even creating a mechanism is only the beginning. To muster up the commitment and act is paramount.Having successfully negotiated the mechanism challenge, you are now confronted with the mother of all obstacles. This is the will power to act on a regular, consistent basis day after day come rain or snow. For those of us living during winter months when the mercury plummets below zero, you know what a super human effort is required to physically drag yourself out of the cozy warmth of your quilt. Most times, if your resolve is not up to it, not all the king's horses and not all the king's men can get you out of bed.
In fact, the key to goal accomplishment is the consistent carrying out of tasks or steps day in day out. Studies have proven that commitment is the single greatest ingredient found in those who regularly surmount obstacles to goal accomplishment. Studies show that the enthusiasm and energy shown at the time of goal setting rarely prevails when it is time to take action. Unless, of course, your commitment and resolve is up to the task.
The Process
Sherlock Holmes might well have said:
the process, my dear Watson (instead of the original:
elementary my dear Watson). Even having set up the mechanism toward goal achievement, the catalyst is the process.
These are those numerous, tiny, steps that slowly move you an inch at at time toward your goal. In management circles, it has become regular practice to ask the question:
does this action move the needle?Productivity studies are now regularly prioritizing the process over the outcome. In fact,
the refrain goes that if your take care of the process well enough, the goal will take care of itself. In this approach, deadlines take a back seat and the scheduling or process takes center stage.
Over the past two to three years, I have stopped setting deadlines for myself. Instead,
I have focused on creating projects clearly chunked into smaller parts or steps with a schedule to boot. So, you could say, the three key ingredients of goal accomplishment are:
- Setting up a project to achieve
- Creating a process (steps) to achieve the project
- Setting up a schedule of daily, weekly and/or monthly tasks or steps
Let me leave you with this suggestion.
Come December 2015 (or earlier for any project you hope to achieve), focus on the process and schedule of action steps and not so much as a deadline.
i can promise you that your project achievement will appear to be on steroids.
In the process, you will become a lean and mean (if your project is fitness) action oriented person as well. Wow, what a bonus!
