From SMART Goals to Atomic Habits there are many ways to direct your efforts in the goal setting arena and yet the goals have not gotten any easier, the achievements have not grown more plentiful and the fears of failure continues to loom over all of our best intentions for progress and or hopes for change. Sadly, when we fall short of our goals we are quick to assume that we failed and never consider that perhaps we simply didn’t have the right goal.
Why, How, What
Of the three components of goal setting, the “what” is the most alluring. The question of “what” is what inspires us. It is what prompts proclamations and preparations but unfortunately, it also yields procrastination, plateaus and quitting. So rather than setting us up for failure, let’s spend some time considering the other two components of goal setting. Let’s make sure the “what” is supported, not neglected, by the “why” and the “how”.
Why Ask Why
The “why” of our goal setting can be quite elusive. It is, after all, easier to say what than it is to explain why. I have been a health coach for over a decade and I can tell you that most people do not readily share their why. I believe this is because there can be a comforting emotional autonomy in the what that the why can never quite claim. Whenever we address why, we will inevitably reach the emotional core of our what, this is of course also known as our motivation. Finding your motivations will inevitably require some digging.
To illustrate the relationship between the why and the what, here is an example I have heard many times before.
What:
“I want to run a marathon”
Why:
(After much prodding) “So I will feel healthy”
Seems simple and straightforward right? It's only five words and it has the word feel in it so this must be the emotional core I was talking about earlier; right? Wrong, this is only the first layer because it only addresses the emotion you want to move to, not the one you are coming from. This is an important distinction because goals inevitably follow a familiar narrative arch: beginning with the before then enduring a struggle or challenge and ending in the after. That after is the goal either accomplished or abandoned. It goes without saying that regardless of results it will take time to move through this arch. Thus the beginning emotion is actually what gives significance to the what you are striving for. To simply say how you want to feel omits how you do feel which is, of course, is inevitably where you are starting from.
Hard Feelings
Exploring this example further, even on a surface-level the what of running a marathon, though certainly an expression of health, is clearly not the only way to express health and vitality. Now if the what was to earn a bumper sticker that says 26.2, maybe then we can embrace the suitable specificity of a marathon but… we would still need to explore why you wanted a bumper sticker that says 26.2.
The emotional core of the why in this example, as it can be in many examples, can be a challenge. Emotions are hard. They are hard to define, troubling to acknowledge and difficult to confront. Unfortunately these are all also reasons to ignore the why in favor of the what. If pressed, what began as “so I will feel healthy” as the why can then dig into why they don't currently feel healthy and even at that, we would still need to identify the emotion that is being experienced as they are not feeling healthy. Hopefully you are seeing that goal setting is actually an expression of emotional intelligence. No emotional intelligence? No SMART goal and certainly no sustained habits either.
Right about now you may be thinking, can’t a marathon just be a marathon without excavating my every childhood whim and adult ambition? Am I going to write about feelings the whole time? Allow me to address these concerns. A goal without a motivation is simply a statement without the means to be brought to fruition and a motivation lacking a real emotional impetus is nothing more than a platitude. And so no, a marathon ambition, sans its ‘emotional core, is not a marathon that gets run and thus not a goal that gets accomplished but yes I will spend more (but not all) this time talking about emotions.
Whether you're a runner or not, here is what we all undoubtedly know about marathon training; it is likely going to involve a great deal of work over a long period of time. This is especially true for those new to running but even for experienced runners, preparing for a marathon is rarely a short and or simple process. So we have to address what is going to help bring us through such a long and difficult process? If you are like many people, I am sure you have something in mind. You have a powerful word already holstered and ready to shoot your way through all obstacles that lay before you. What is the preferred side-arm of many goal-makers and all dreamers alike? Discipline. Yes if we are disciplined then nothing can stand in our way. When we are tired, sick and cold, discipline will drag us out of bed to go for a run. When we are stressed, injured and feeling down, discipline will pick us up, smack some sense into us and push us onto the treadmill. Discipline is the catch-all, be-all antidote to our natural selves. And let’s be honest, we may get nervous and or disappointed about other people letting us down but when we let ourselves down; that is when we are at risk of guilt, shame and the catastrophizing and overgeneralization common in the cognitive distortions associated with depression. Letting ourselves down is high stakes and unfortunately discipline, however defined, is finite and worse than being unlimited it is short lived as well. A truth proven in every gym as February's scarcity contrasts January's abundance.
I am not saying that there will not be some wins or some progress made in the name of discipline but simply that its days are numbered and it is not a reliable substitute for an honest why.
Processing
So if it is not discipline that will bring us through then what will? How can we work to make sure any goal we make is not fleeting, futile or simply a fantasy of ambition? To evoke the work of James Clear in Atomic Habits, we must acknowledge that between the beginning and the accomplishment is a process and that process will not occur as a montage in a movie. It will not be easy and yet it absolutely cannot be miserable because our appetite for misery is meager. Instead of dreading, please consider how we can actually enjoy the process. In fact I dare posit that we consider how we might proceed in loving the process. Love inspires a more ravenous appetite. I know that in talking of love and loving what we are doing as part of the process we may already feel our interest in goals dissipating as part of the allure of said goal might be that its accomplishment is only empowered by the misery it took to achieve it. No pain, no gain; no misery, no point?
I agree that joy can be enhanced by misery but misery only overlaps joy in completion. Meaning that in the Venn diagram of misery and joy, where they overlap is completion. No completion, no joy and thus the misery is just that, miserable. Our mistake is in thinking in terms of completing the whole goal before allowing for joy when we would actually be better off breaking our process into much smaller goals, commonly referred to as a progression. This progression should consist of milestones or moments of specified progression that lead up to accomplishing the greater goal. These small accomplishments on the way to your grander achievement provide encouragement and gratification. Encouragement keeps you going and gratification confirms that you are on the right track and that you can achieve the larger goal. This approach also allows you to experience happiness during the process as opposed to holding happiness hostage until you complete the larger goal. In this sense we can argue that long term goals can be short-sighted as they do not take into consideration what will happen in the here and now that will help get us to the then and later.
This progression within the process approach also better aligns with how all change occurs which is in stages. I think the best example of this is in martial arts that utilize a belt system. This system of course is one of milestones but it also communicates the advancement not only toward the black belt but also the progression of skill that is expected in this advancement. Consider the emptiness of achieving a black belt if not having passed through numerous other colors on your way there. Consider whether it would still retain any meaning if not accompanied with the advancement in skill you would expect. Finally consider if any skill gained was not progressed over time but instead magically granted immediately. Would you still value the skills gained if they were not earned but simply bestowed? Has there been anything that you mastered suddenly or only after a short period of time that you still value as a skill; that you still appreciate as an attribute? I am guessing no. Part of our recognition of having attained or achieved anything is based on advancement and the progression that happens within a process. Strangely we do not often think of the process necessary to reach our goals. We instead jump to the end and bask in the daydream of achievement but the end alone does not make a story
Like jumping to the end of a book to see how it ends or watching only the last five minutes of a movie, the ending is unable to hold any meaning. The process contextualizes our ending, gives the ending a richness that allows for it to be rewarding. And so, a process consisting of milestones, benchmarks or simply specified progressions will help to contextualize any goal and map out any progression. I only advise that said progress points are written in pencil and not pen as the terrain of any journey is best appreciated in the journey itself and not prior our embarking on it. That is to say, leave some room to reevaluate.
How Do You Do
As you may be able to guess, the “how” should be viewed as an opportunity to not only have milestones but also some joy in the process. Once again returning to our marathons example, if you hate running I am not confident that this is an achievable goal. Even if you have convinced yourself of a tolerance for running to last as long as the marathon, you still of course must consider how you expect to run a marathon without running to prepare for a marathon. So we have to be strategic about the how or hows we select to comprise our process.
Any goal to some degree remains a goal because we have not already, naturally accomplished it and it is safe to say there is inevitably a reason as to why something we have likely long wanted to do has yet to be done. Most times it is because we know that the doing, the process, is difficult and when confronted with challenges we often become hyper aware of what we already need to do and in doing so the things we want to do move from the driver’s seat, to the passenger’s seat, to the back seat, trunk or left on the side of the road altogether. There are always other things we simply must do which will compete for the time, energy and focus for the things we want to do. This is especially challenging for caregivers for whom putting someone else's needs ahead of your own has become a routine necessity of life. This challenging reality will often lead to the fantasy of the perfect time or as like to call it, the church of ideal circumstances. I say church because the idealized scenario is often the altar we pray at. It is a comfort for our own ego to believe both that we cannot do as we please or accomplish at will because now is not the best time and also that there will in fact, at some point, be a perfect time. I do not doubt that some times are better than others and I do believe in the existence and scarcity of convenience but I do have lingering doubts about putting our faith in this church, alluring as it may be.
If the goal only reminds us of its inconvenience leading to rationalizations about hypothetical convenience at some later time then perhaps we should reconsider our approach. We might normally approach our example marathon goal with the expectation of running at least five days a week. The quantity of five days a week begins to weaken our faith in our consistency and suddenly, as previously stated, we become hyper aware of how inconvenient that would be and so we go to church, the church of ideal circumstances that is and we begin to think about the life or lifestyle that would allow us to not only run five days a week but to do so without the guilt of feeling like five days of running is equal to five days of neglecting five days of something else. No one runs fast, free or with any joy while they are thinking about what they should be doing. We are also robbed of the very important sense of fulfillment that comes with walking the walk of running if we are distracted by the other things we have not completed.
Despite pushing you out of church I will leave you with a prayer.
“The Productivity Prayer”
By Matthew J. Mahoney
You will never do all of the things all of the time
At best you will do some of the things some of the time
With practice maybe some of the things most of the time
With experience maybe most of the the things some of the time
With expertise you will do most of the things most of the time
But never all of the things all of the time
So lighten the fuck up
You may be an expert in your field or job but maybe not as a runner and thus please note that expertise, diligence and efficiency in one realm does not necessarily apply to all pursuits
Here’s How
To help make sure your how offers the best path to your goals here are some guidelines:
Raising Funs
The activity you select must check at least one of the boxes:
Fun during
Fulfilled after
It is not important which one you choose but if there is nothing enjoyable about the during or after in your how… you will stop doing it. Some things that can make the during more enjoyable is to “how” with other people. You might be surprised at the power of camaraderie even if it veers into commissary. You may also get the added bonus of accountability in realizing that your absence will not go unnoticed. You might be surprised as to how this positive form of peer pressure can carry you through tiredness, reluctance and avoidance. You may also be surprised by how inspired you can feel by others. You may be fearful of comparison getting in the way of such an appreciation and yes, that can be a concern as nothing shines in the shadow of comparison but the best way to avoid that is to find genuine joy in the accomplishments of others and the only way to feel that it to love them, if only a little bit. These are of course all things which can not be done alone.
There of course is always the option of reserving things you already enjoy for your how. Perhaps your favorite podcast during your runs, a glass of wine with your batch cooking or a good book while on the stationary bike. In this pairing, do we run the risk of our activity falling to our attention’s preference for the paired item, yes but please stop believing that all goals can be accomplished only with sole focus on said goals. If you find you run slower when you listen to podcasts, you can always compensate with other modalities of intensity such as duration or simply change from podcasts to music.
Measured progress must be designated to specified milestones
If you long to be a cocktail pianist (In case you are tired of running through our previous example) but still struggle to play the piano at all then we cannot simply implore the necessity of practice or hobble our evolution with the mere modifier of better, as in when I play better I will do such and such. We must define what it means to be better and break the concept of better up into concrete accomplishments. For example:
Directive: Learn to read music
Milestone: You can read, understand and perform all of the songs
in a beginner level piano songbook
Directive: Make a list of 4 - 5 songs you would like to learn to play
Milestone: Be able to play all of the songs as they are written
Directives: Explore how these songs could be altered to feel like
your own.
Milestone: Play the songs you know with a proficiency that
incorporates your interpretation.
Directives: Record yourself playing those songs your way
Milestones:List and make notes about each performance.
Directives: Practice songs with focus on notes made from
recordings
Milestones: Perform songs in a public space, music stores are great for this,
people can hear you but they are not there to hear you. No booking, purchase or payment required but you will get the experience of performing while others are around.
Directive: Perform a song at an open mic.
Milestone: After performance evaluate whether you still want to
accomplish your initial goal
Track Pack
We are always where we are but that inescapable reality does not mean we are always aware of where we have been. Knowing that we have made progress on our journey can be tremendously helpful and so incorporating a system of tracking your progress can be a real game changer. One of the most basic forms of recording is called the “Chain Method” which can be utilized many ways but the best example is marking on a calendar each day you work towards your goal. If for example you make the new year’s resolution to work out more in the upcoming year, we must find some way (beyond our mere memory) to record our actions towards this goal so as to provide evidence of our progress and hopefully our achievement. Imagine marking a red X on a calendar for each day you work out. A calendar full of red X’s is the best way to encourage more red X’s. In this scenario it is important that the calendar be booth visual, meaning you can actually see it as opposed to writing in a journal each day that you worked out which will not be visually evoked or striking in a way that draws your attention to the collective efforts. It must also be in sight, meaning that it is displayed in a place and way in which you do not need to work hard to see the X’s. Think perhaps a wall calendar on a wall of a room you actually regularly go in. The last critical aspect of this practice is the action of making the proverbial red X must be ritualized. Ritualization means that the X is applied in the same ways and approximately the same time. This method will not be as effective if you, for example, mark all the days you worked on sporadically or just once a week. Marking multiple X’s just once a week negates the intention of the daily (or near daily) effort. This means that the marking of the X will not be attached to a specific effort carried out on the day you made the X and thus will not have any meaning. No meaning? No point. Though the action of marking a red X on a calendar may not in any way seem like a rewarding behavior but the absolute best part of being human is that we hold within ourselves the ability to assign meaning to anything and you might be surprised that, if followed as written, this practice will become something you actually look forward to. It is not uncommon at all for the pride of a calendar filled with X’s to be shared. Sharing your progress is a far more useful tactic or predictor of continued progress than mere public declarations. Public declarations, whether made in real life or simply social media are often an attempt by the declarer to scare themselves into action by adding social pressure but it often ignores all of the aspects that have been mentioned thus far. I don't care who you tell your goals to, I care about the process, not the promises.
Please note that there are apps that offer the same kind of chain-style tracking and can certainly be helpful to some but please make sure there are efforts put into the accessibility, ritual and display of this approach.
And Finally…
I leave you with some potential bumps in the road of your process and how you might be able to anticipate and bypass them. Obstacles are inevitable and so get ready to anticipate and adapt.
Church of Everyday Saints
The concept of “everyday” is very alluring as it brings with it a schedule, consistency, dependability, and most importantly; in one simple word, it also communicates invincibility. Invincibility to all of the challenges both big and small to sticking with a habit. Lots of great things can come from anything you do everyday. Practice any skill-based activity everyday and your skill in that activity will expand. Practice mindfully everyday and it will deepen as well.
Having said that, everyday is not always everyday. Sometimes it is just most of them and yes you can still make progress most of the days, in fact, I don’t want to derail anyone but to be honest, you can even make progress some days. Our allegiance should be to progress not to the trappings of absolute thinking. Absolute thinking is the fancy way of saying all or nothing kind of thinking, meaning, I either give it my all or no effort at all, or I either workout everyday or not at all. Absolute thinkers love the concept of “everyday”.
Absolute thinking is very common and as I have indicated in my examples, it can be as harmful as it is beneficial. Absolute thinkers are searching for perfection not progress. They are often more interested in being able to honestly say that they did something everyday than they are of receiving the benefits of getting better at something you’ve done everyday. Most times they are simply seduced by a version of themselves that is in complete control. This is much like being in love with a ghost. Try as you will, I wouldn’t hold your breath for a box of chocolates come Valentine’s Day. Falling in love with the version of you that will never come to be, since perfection is an impossibility, is at its base a form of self sabotage hiding behind the defense of simply having high standards. You are not perfect. You will never be perfect and the time you spend trying to be perfect is time while you could have been trying to be better. If ever you feel tempted by perfection or under the spell of absolute thinking please read the prayer below.
“The Gym Serenity Prayer”
By Matthew J. Mahoney
I believe my goals are achievable and I trust that I won't let myself down. I won't go to the gym everyday and that is okay. I will start with the ambition of going some days and that is how I will foster enough trust in myself to work towards going most days but I will never go all the days because I am too interesting for the vapid impossibility of perfection
Amen
Accomplishment is Non Binary
An additional benefit to progress is that it is incremental as opposed to the rigidity that pass / fail (all or nothing) provides. At the risk of reducing everything I believe into one pathetically pithy phrase, life is not pass / fail. It is not uncommon for people interested in losing weight to specify their goal in terms of pounds lost. If for example your goal is to lose ten pounds and you only lost nine, is that failure? If yes then you are ignoring progress in favor of failure. It might be worth exploring why you prefer to see yourself that way.
In the End
In the end, all of our efforts, ambitions and yes goals will be heavily influenced by our drive towards authenticity disguised as discipline. Authenticity is when our actions match our intentions. We may say we want to run a marathon because we want to think of ourselves as someone that runs and the marathon is what comes to mind when we think of how we can definitively prove to ourselves that our intention was in fact met with action. Its truth when we say it, its authenticity when we do it. Think about what you want to do and find the honesty in the why and the joy in the how.