By Dr. Marty Martin bio
For many, celebrating the New Year means making resolutions. Many people resolve to lose weight, exercise more, save more, read more, or a host of other goals. As January fades away, so do our actions regarding our commitments or resolutions.
But when the winter chill begins to thaw, many individuals will start making the same or different goals for spring. Then, when summer subsides and the school year kicks off, there will be a recommitment to those existing goals, or a new set in their place.
People have no problem setting goals: they have problems achieving them.
The key question to ask yourself is: “What happens after I make my goals?” Let’s take two individuals—Maria and John, and their contrasting styles for ensuring they achieve their goals.
1. Write it down
Maria writes down her New Year’s Resolution to increase the number of steps she walks from 3,000 to 7,500 each day after getting a fitness activity tracker as a holiday gift. John tweets out to his contacts that he is going to trim down for the spring and get back to his old college shape and stamina.
Whose goal is more specific? Of course, you can measure Maria’s goal and you can track progress. But John’s goal is fuzzy and somewhat vague. The evidence is clear that specific goals are more likely to be achieved than fuzzy, vague goals.
2. Focus wins the day
Maria decided to simply focus on that one specific goal—increasing the number of daily steps taken—for the first 3 months of the year. John, however, identified 5 areas of improvement for the next 3 months including getting back to his old shape.
Who would you predict will reach their goal? Hopefully, you thought “Maria.” And you are correct if you did. Why? The verdict is out and states that focusing on one goal at a time increases the probability of achieving that goal.
3. Patience paralyzes quitting
Maria is patient with herself. She recognizes that it takes more than sheer willpower to develop a new behavior or habit. Ideally, Maria desires to reach this goal within 3 months but she will not beat herself up if takes 4 months. John believes that if you want it bad enough, if you’re willing to endure some pain, then you will reach your goal. If you ask John when he wants to look like he used to, he will tell you yesterday. He is not patient with himself.
If you were to make a bet, would you bet on Maria or John achieving their goal? If you picked Maria, you’ve earned some extra money. The research evidence published in the European Journal of Social Psychology states that it takes an average of 66 days to develop a new habit.
4. The ABCs of habits
Maria realized two things: wearing her fitness activity tracker and reading her email reminded her to get stepping, and to continue her long-held practice of giving herself little rewards throughout the day for making progress. These micro-rewards are as simple as self-congratulatory statements or reading a couple of pages of an engaging book or magazine.
John continues to say to himself that he has got to return to his old good-looking self. He is blind about his habit of snacking throughout the day-at work, at home, on vacation, and on business trips. John does not believe in rewarding himself until the “job is done.” For him, the job is not done until he looks like he used to look. Once again, Maria has put herself in a better position to achieve her goal. But why?
Psychologists developed an A-B-C model of behavior. This model also applies to habits.
- The “A” stands for antecedents or triggers to behavior.
- The “B” is the target behavior.
- The “C” represents consequences (positive or negative) after engaging in the behavior.
This A-B-C model deserves a bit more attention. For Maria, there are two antecedents or triggers for her taking steps: (1) wearing the fitness activity tracker (physical/visual/auditory cue); and (2) email (physical/visual/auditory cue). These cues, triggers or antecedents occur more than once a day but not so often that they become meaningless or overwhelm her. The behavior is the physical act of taking the steps.
What about the “C” or consequences? She stated that she congratulates herself (positive consequence) and takes a break to read something enjoyable (positive consequence). By giving herself positive consequences for engaging in the behavior rather than negative consequences for not engaging in the behavior, then Maria has stumbled upon another trick to get closer to realizing her goals.
5. Leverage Strengths
Maria’s self-congratulatory thoughts are known by psychologists as self-affirmations. There is a link between self-affirmations and behavior change. Affirming yourself as it relates to a particular resolution, goal, or desired habit enables you to review and catalog your strengths.
The coaching and family therapy literature has shown the power of leveraging strengths when assisting individuals to change their behaviors and reach their goals. This does not mean that Maria should overlook or deny her weaknesses. It only means that she should do both but focus on her strengths more than her weaknesses.
Conclusion
These five evidence based tips will get you closer to achieving your goals. Just remember that it is far easier to make a goal, than it is to change a habit. The trick is to cultivate what psychologists call “goal adherent action.” Quite simply, this means “do what you intend to do and do it and do it again and again.” Goal achievement—and more broadly, realizing resolutions—is all about doing, not thinking, and not intending but doing.
Related reading: | ||
How to set SMART personal goals
|
90-day goals for success and job satisfaction
|
Start off staff’s year by putting the focus on professional growth
|