Achieve the Goals You Set

What is the one thing that people inadvertently do that prevents them from reaching their goal?

A couple weeks ago, I spoke about health goals during the holiday season. Do you care if you gain weight? Do you want to maintain your weight? Or do you want to continue to lose weight if you are already on a health journey? What is your goal?

Let’s talk about how to achieve goals. This applies to every aspect of life, not just health and/or weight loss.

Many people never reach their goals because they are focusing on the wrong thing.

I’ll use a weight loss example because it is numbers and makes it easy. Let’s say you want to lose 15lbs and you make that your goal. When that is your goal, you are focusing on what you want to get away from instead of what you want to get to. When people do this, as soon as they see progress, they feel accomplished and stop short of the goal.

Change your focus

Do not focus on what you want to get away from. Instead, create a vision of where you want to go.

When you focus on the desired end state, you are more likely to reach your goal because you won’t stop until you get there.

So, reword your goal statement from “lose 15 pounds” to “achieve a weight of [insert number here] pounds”.  Also, make sure that you can measure your goal. This is very important!  If you cannot measure it, you don’t know when you have achieved it!

Time Bound and achievable goals

It is also a good idea to put a time constraint on your goals. Deadlines prevent procrastination or stopping short of your goals “for a break”. However, you must make sure the timeframe is achievable! A big issue many in this generation face is immediate gratification. If something doesn’t work right away, people will give up. Change takes time!! Talk with someone who has accomplished what you want and ask them for a realistic timeframe.

A time frame that is too short to achieve the goal will cause you to get discouraged and give up. Think about how you will feel if you give up. It will be disappointing, and some people will feel like a failure. Do not put that kind of stress on yourself.

If your goal is big and will take a long time to achieve, break it down into smaller parts. Celebrate your success as you achieve the smaller goals and KEEP going by setting the next goal and timeframe. Just make sure that your celebration of achievement does not set you back in your goals. For example, it is not a good idea to celebrate losing 20 lbs by eating a big dinner out with cake as a dessert. Make sure your celebration does not conflict with your goal. If it does, it can reverse your results and throw you off track, making it harder to continue.

Lead from the Future

Lastly, let your desired future motivate you today. Visualize your end state by writing down the answers to these questions:

• Where will you be?
• How will you feel?
• What will you be doing?

Let that future visual be a guide your actions today, tomorrow, and every day. If you want to lose 15lbs before leaving for a vacation with friends or family in 2 months, visualize what vacation will be like for you 15lbs lighter. Will you have the energy to play beach volleyball or play in the ocean waves with your kids? Will you feel more comfortable in your new swimsuit? Take time to really think about where you want to be and remember that picture each time you make a decision about what to eat, when to exercise, and what to drink.

If you are interested in improving your health and/or losing weight and want to know more about my program which has helped over 2 million people reach their goals, send me a message on Facebook requesting a free consultation.  Or, you can complete a health questionnaire, which sends the results directly to me.  Go to my home page and click the middle picture for a “Free Assessment”.