What even is a goal?

A goal is an idea of the future or desired result that a person or a group of people envision, plan, and commit to achieve.

How can we learn more about goals?

Google always has answers 🙂

But I prefer a more “old school” approach of reading (and sometimes listening to) books and articles written by others much smarter than I am.

A few of the books I have enjoyed have led me to believe that the sustainability of goals comes not in the big, grand actions we think are required to achieve a specific outcome but in our daily habits.

Author James Clear has written extensively on goal setting. I love his article entitled “Goal Setting: A Scientific Guide to Setting and Achieving Goals”.

In this article, he notes a strategy he learned from a friend, author Mark Manson, in which he asks a different question about goals and goal setting.

Often we begin by asking what we want to achieve and what success would look like. Clear proposes that what we should really be asking is, “What kind of pain do I want?”

Nearly all of us want to achieve the result of more money or finally losing weight, but are we willing to do what it takes to achieve those results? Are you willing to sacrifice what it takes to reach that end?

It is not just about the prize at the finish line but the cost of the endeavor overall.

And while goals are what determine the direction you are heading, it is the systems that you put into place to move you toward your goal that actually create your progress.

For example, I had a “goal” to run a marathon. The “system” I had to achieve the goal was a training program/schedule that lasted the entire year. I probably could have achieved my “goal” sooner but I knew that I had the time to work on my “system” for that long so it worked for me.

It is the system that you put into place that is actually how you achieve the goal. Habits are the microsystems that we can develop to move us toward our goals.

In his book, Atomic Habits, Clear says, “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” With systems in place, small 1% improvements will lead to remarkable results.

In the book Tiny Habits by B.J. Fogg, he shares his model for behavior change. Fogg suggests that for every behavior you need a trigger, or something that signals the behavior, along with ability and motivation. If one of those parts is not present the behavior will not be executed.

Clear and Fogg would agree on the idea of a trigger. And they both suggest “habit stacking”. This is the idea that you choose a cue that is something you already do and add your desired habit to that.

“After I brush my teeth, I will do 10 push-ups.”

“After I run out of something, I will add it to my shopping list.”

“After I step into the shower, I will take 3 deep breaths.”

Whatever triggers or cues you decide on, research shows that you are 2x or 3x more likely to stick to your goals if you make the action very specific.

Rather than saying I would train for a year to prepare for the marathon, I got specific. I would run 3 mornings each week after waking up, making my long runs on Saturdays when I had more time available. I added riding my bicycle two mornings a week for cross-training, leaving Wednesday and Sunday as rest days.

Knowing what days, what times, and how I would train took the ambiguity out of it so I had fewer decisions to make each day. It was already determined. I just needed to follow the plan.

Once you have a goal and a system in place, you can work on the boundaries within those systems. Maybe in the beginning you are doing something that takes less than two minutes as James Clear might suggest.

Maybe you are looking at the least amount of effort we are willing to offer.

” I will make at least 5 offers today.”

“I will call at least 3 new contacts each day.”

“I will lose at least 5 pounds this month.”

While these thresholds may get you started, the idea follows that if you can do more than the minimum, keep it going!

Clear suggests that along with the minimums in our systems, we should also put an upper boundary on our actions to avoid burnout and sustain our long-term growth.

Nearly all of us want to achieve the result of more money or finally losing weight, but are we willing to do what it takes to achieve those results? Are you willing to sacrifice what it takes to reach that end?

It is not just about the prize at the finish line but the cost of the endeavor overall.

---

I’m Michelle. I am learning how to minimize my overwhelm, perfectionism, and people-pleasing and I am ready to help you do the same. I’m a certified Life Coach and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Come with me and learn how.

Whatever triggers or cues you decide on, research shows that you are 2x or 3x more likely to stick to your goals if you make the action very specific.

Rather than saying I would train for a year to prepare for the marathon I got specific. I would run 3 mornings each week after waking up, making my longer runs on Saturdays when I hade more time available. I added riding my bicycle two mornings a week for cross training, leaving Wednesday and Sunday as rest days.

So how do we look at the social and emotional side of goals and sustainability?

I wanted to start by sharing my definition of mental health:

Mental health includes our social, emotional, and psychological well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices.

So for me, when I am discussing the “Social” aspect of most things, this is the lens I am looking through.

Social includes the traditional concepts of relationships with others around me, as well as the relationship I have with myself.

A few ideas come to mind with the social frame of goal setting.

First, I think of goals and accountability. It would be fantastic if we were always so motivated by our goals that the lack of outside accountability had little to no effect.

In practice, however, there is a large number of us that do considerably better in our goals practice when we have external accountability.

I am grateful for the accountability groups that I belong to in many of my goals areas.

Last January I joined a group working on 1% Habits. Even though we each had differing goals we were able to support and encourage one another as we all worked on individual things.

In that group I connected with someone who also had a goal to increase workout consistency. We decided we would exchange numbers and keep in contact through our Apple watches and sharing our workouts.

Even though we have never met, we have been cheering each other on in our fitness efforts for over 500 days!

There were definitely days that I didn’t feel like doing what I had scheduled to do. But a small thought in my mind reminded me that “Jill” would know I didn’t do my workout. 🙂

I am sure that is partly because I tend to follow characteristics of what Gretchen Rubin terms an “Obliger”, or someone who meets outer expectations while struggling to meet inner expectations. I have a very well-developed fear of letting other people down.

I didn’t want to disappoint “Jill”. And seeing her notifications come through also motivated me to do my workouts as well.

We have become friends and I am grateful for her consistent encouragement and motivation. It has played a part in being able to show up for myself.

Accountability partners or groups don’t work for everyone but they can be a help if you are struggling to consistently do the things that move you towards your goal.

Second, the mental health piece of goal setting has changed the most for me over the past two years.

I have struggled to set goals as an adult because of the critical voice in my head that would get very loud when I didn’t accomplish my goals, or maybe I didn’t execute the goal “perfectly”.

This negative self-talk had me giving up on my goals to avoid the criticism that was sure to come. Failing ahead of time was a way to lessen the pain of failing to be perfect.

The irony is I still criticized myself for not following through, for not completing the things I thought I wanted. So I didn’t avoid the negative talk. It was just “less painful” because I didn’t fail per se, I just stopped trying.

Goal setting in the past has been my way of “fixing” the things that are wrong with me. Improving the areas that I am not measuring up to some elusive standard in my head. Working on my own mental health has helped me in my goal-setting and continued progress.

I am still a little resistant to setting the recommended SMART goals. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely.

I am improving and making my goals a little more specific. But part of my brain thinks the specifics are what makes it unattainable. If I were to keep it more vague, I wouldn’t know if I was missing the mark, and therefore wouldn’t have to be mean and critical of myself for “failing”.

Even though we have never met, we have been cheering each other on in our fitness efforts for over 500 days!

There were definitely days that I didn’t feel like doing what I had scheduled to do. But a small thought in my mind reminded me that “Jill” would know I didn’t do my workout. 🙂

---

I’m Michelle. I am learning how to minimize my overwhelm, perfectionism, and people-pleasing and I am ready to help you do the same. I’m a certified Life Coach and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Come with me and learn how.

Goal setting in the past has been my way of “fixing” the things that are wrong with me. Improving the areas that I am not measuring up to some elusive standard in my head. Working on my own mental health has helped me in my goal-setting and continued progress.