January can be a busy time for therapists and coaches, and I personally receive many enquiries for help with anything from stopping smoking, motivation to exercise or weight loss. I also sometimes work with people who want to make a change in their life such as changing career or getting a pay rise or even finally deciding to get rid of that phobia for good. Now, it certainly isn’t crucial that you seek assistance from a coach or a therapist to help you with your new year’s resolutions, but it is definitely worth taking into consideration some general coaching principles to help you to set more achievable goals.
As the clock strikes midnight on December 31st, millions of people throughout the world will be setting themselves one or more goals to achieve in the next year (and beyond). The reality is that by mid-day the next day, many of them will have already failed. A lot of the time, this is because they are not following some basic tried and tested techniques for goal setting.
I was recently listening to Raymond Blanc (the celebrity chef) on the radio talking about why he no longer makes New Year’s resolutions. Instead now, he makes resolutions whenever he thinks it is appropriate during any part of the year. This makes a lot of sense to me! This is a much more successful strategy for creating a long lasting habit for continuously setting and achieving smaller and more achievable goals. With this in mind, why wait until New Year, get thinking about one or two goals now, write them down using the process below and then you can enjoy your New Year celebrations even more.
Here is a useful little sequence of steps for you to apply to the creation of each resolution. It is based around the word C.R.E.A.T.E. Each letter refers to a particular aspect of the goal setting process. This technique was originated by Christopher Howard, author of Turning Passions Into Profits.
Let’s say your New Year’s resolution is “I want to lose weight”; a common new year’s resolution! Here is how you would apply it to the CREATE process.
C – CLEAR AND CONCISE
- Make sure you goal is not worded ambiguously – be very specific – Example: “I want to lose weight” is too ambiguous and woolly and needs to be more specific, saying exactly what you will do. It would be better to write “I am going to lose 1 stone”. In fact this is still not the best way to word the goal as you will see later on!
R-REALISTIC
- Always be realistic. Don’t set yourself up to fail by creating unrealistic, unachievable goals ending in unnecessary guilt or stress. Rather, start with a smaller goal as a means to achieving a higher one. In this example you may be better to set yourself a smaller interim goal of losing some of the 1 stone first, and then setting another similar goal after that: Example: “I am going to lose 6 pounds”. Henry Ford once said “Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs”
- Success breeds success, and having a goal which you know you can achieve will help your motivation immensely. Once you have created a list of successes then think about stretching yourself more as your confidence and experience has increased.
E-ECOLOGICAL
- Simply put, “Is the goal worth doing?”. This is not about being “environmental”, it is deciding whether achieving the goal beneficial for you, for others and the planet?. If you can answer yes to these questions, then you are creating a situation which is ultimately better for everyone.
A-AS IF NOW
- Always write the goal in the present tense. The mind works better when it has fully imagined something already having happened. In fact your unconscious mind at some level doesn’t recognise the difference between really doing something and imagining having done it? So when you write it in the present tense, you have at some unconscious level already achieved it, and this helps to set a strong mental direction towards the goal. (See a future newsletter for how this works in goal setting)
T-TIMED and TOWARDS what you want
- It is always important to put a future date or time on your goal - even if it is written in the present tense. Example: “It is 2 months from now, and I have lost 6 pounds….”
- It is very important to choose the wording for the goal as something that you can move TOWARDS rather than away from. To find the right wording for this it helps to ask yourself why you are setting this goal in the first place. For this example, it might be that you ultimately want to drop 3 dress sizes or 3 belt notches on your waist in order to buy a specific clothing item. With the smaller, more realistic goal, this can better just be reduced to first dropping one dress size. In the case, the goal can be reworded as “it is 2 months from now, and I can fit into a new dress which is 1 size smaller than before”.
- Avoid words like “NOT”, “WON’T”, “DON’T”, “STOP”, “TRY” – these just simply keep your mind focussed on the problem. Too understand this, try not thinking about a pink elephant.
E-END STEP / EVIDENCE PROCEDURE
- This is VERY IMPORTANT. It lets you know when you have actually achieved your goal. It can be easily answered by answering the question “How will I know when I have reached my goal?”
- It helps to use the following questions to get the full detail here:
“When I achieve this goal,”
- o “What am I doing? What am I feeling, hearing and seeing? Who is with me? What are they saying? Or thinking?”
- o “How do know I have achieved the goal?”
- o “What is the first thing I will do after I have achieved the goal that I couldn’t do before?”
- o “What did I do to get to this point?”, “What are the 5 key steps I took that made the difference?”
- So an example could be…
“It is 3 months from now, and I am wearing a size X dress / waist. I feel healthier and more confident. I can see myself looking good in the changing room mirror and the clothes fit me better. I hear people that I know complimenting me on how well I have done. I am buying clothes from this shop that I have not been able to buy before. I feel really proud and elated that I have accomplished this and look forward to my next clothing purchase.”
So there you go, what started off as an idea of “I want to lose weight” has now been made more specific and realistic. In addition, you have imagined what it will be like when you achieve the goal and have worded it so as to ensure that you are motivated towards it rather than away from something. A little extra time spent going through this process will pay dividends.
Whether you decide to make New Year’s resolutions or not, you can always use this technique to help you set any goals related to any aspect of your life at any time and notice how it works for you. Have a great Christmas and New Year!
Covered in next newsletter
In the next newsletter I will address Tip 3: Improve the way in which you choose what to do each day/week/month through prioritisation and delegation – to help you kick start the new year.