A Fresh Approach To New Years Resolutions
It’s that time of year again when we make our New Year’s resolutions, “A New Year a New Me!”
Unfortunately, the majority of us won’t make it half way through January before the goals we set for ourselves have already flown out the window. This leaves us feeling disappointed and disillusioned.
Why is it that we have such a difficult time sticking to these resolutions? Performance coach Todd Herman explains, “There is a temptation to try to project what is going to happen a year or two out with no capacity of knowing what will happen in between.” Therefore, we need to break our goals into smaller, measurable segments.
As suggested in his very informative podcast setting a series of 90-day goals will help set you up for making your dreams a reality. Once you have achieved your 90-day goals you can sit down and reevaluate your performance and set a new goal.
One of the most important things outlined in his podcast is the need for confidence in goal setting. The opposite of confidence is confusion, hesitation, and uncertainty, which leave people overwhelmed with feelings of self-doubt. As Herman states; confidence “is a learned behavior,” Our confidence grows as we accomplish a series of 90-day goals.
Here is a simple break down of the 3 types of goals in the 90-day goals. Following this structure can help you to achieve your desired outcomes and get you ready for setting your next goals:
Three Types of Goals
1) Outcome Goal:
- These are measurable results, e.g. In 90 days, I will loose 20 pounds.
- Type A personalities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and men are especially gifted in thinking this way.
- If you focus only on the outcome, it creates high levels of stress and anxiety, as you don’t have control over these.
2) Performance Goals:
- What are you going to improve in order to get to the outcome goal?
- Break your outcome goal into performance goals over two week periods that you can measure throughout the process, e.g. In the next two weeks, I am going to the gym one time, and will take my lunch to work and not eat out.
- These are high impact, measurable activities that will impact your outcome goal.
3) Process Goals:
- Follow the formula: 4W=C+M
- Who is going to do What, When, and Where? This will equal Clarity and Momentum.
- You have 100% control over process goals.
After we’ve started on the path to living the process of achieving our goals we need to assess what we’ve done so we have concrete data to measure. By doing so you can take inventory of what is working and evaluate if anything needs to be tweaked to reach the desired outcome. Measuring and assessing your progress will help to decrease anxiety and overwhelm keeping you motivated.
Another important component of reaching these Outcome Goals is “Character Crafting.” We need to start living the part of who we want to be. It may feel uncomfortable at first but eventually, like every new discipline; it will begin to feel natural. For example, if I want to be seen as a decisive leader how would I perform if you were that “person?”
He also suggests the use of an artifact or routine that you can use to help remind you of the person you want to become. For example, let your wrist watch or walk to the water cooler remind you to step into character.
Its also very important to eliminate the negative self-talk, which is conflict with the “alter-ego” that you are trying to portray. This “alter-ego” does not have time for confusion and uncertainty if you are going to reach those goals you’ve set for yourself.
As we step into this New Year let’s make sure that we have a plan of action. Now is the time to make this year the most successful year to date. Good luck to everyone in 2016. May all your wildest hopes and dreams come true. You deserve it!
Listen to the full Todd Herman podcast below:
http://freedomfastlane.com/todd-herman-making-goals-inevitable-with-90-day-sprints/
