Tip of the Day… Setting Goals.

 Did you know that research has shown us that less than 10% of people who have set goals will stick to them for longer than a couple of months?  

Why?  Do we think people in general are lazy, have no will power or just not committed?  ABSOLUTELY NOT!  

The real reason is any type of change is difficult.  Guess what, we are luck that there are so many different strategies that you can use to make you successful at achieving your goals and making the change a bit more easy for you.

There are so many different books out there that address goal setting  and Dan and Chip Heath, who are great authors call it “shrinking the change.” This brother duo say the only to achieve goals is to break them down into smaller goals.  As you begin to achieve those smaller goals, you begin to feel accomplished and will start building the momentum to keep chasing the larger goal that you set.  

What we don’t want is to feel overwhelmed with our goals. When that happens, we tend to just walk away, but, when we have those tiny successful achievements and we can feel the success, it is much easier for us to keep building on that and keep the work going.

The idea is to take your goal and put it into more manageable pieces and creating several different milestones to reach.  This allows you to set more realistic goals or as I like to say SMART goals.  SMART stands for simple, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely.  Doing this allows you to feel successful and making change much easier.

What do these pieces look like?  How small are they?  Well they are very small manageable steps to achieving the larger goal.  It is important to make those smaller goals attainable so that you feel the success and want to keep going!

For example, you have a goal to become healthier by working out 4-5 days a week for 30 minutes each day. Break this down by doing some type of activity that gets your heart rate going for five minutes each day.  This could be walking, jumping jacks or even knee bends, whatever it is do it for 5 minutes each day then increase your time each week by another 5 minutes and continue to do that until you reach your 30 minutes.

Maybe you want to read more, or eat better, what ever it is start by setting your goal, write it down then break it down into small manageable pieces.  Be specific, make it measurable and set a time limit to achieve your larger goal by.  

What are your goals?  Let’s get started!