Goal Setting-Four Important Steps

Its been said that "a goal is a dream with a deadline." Yet achieving them also seems to defy a lot our best intentions and wishful thinking.

A gem of a book I recently picked up is 59 Seconds, Think a Little, Change a Lot by Richard Wiseman, a psychologist from the U.K..

My longtime readers may recall that Wiseman is one of my favorite authors, in fact the class I present occasionally on increasing the amount of luck in your life is in large part based on his groundbreaking book the Luck Factor.

In 59 Seconds Wiseman has sifted through tons of research as to what works and what doesn’t as far as self-help goes.

A sacred cow in self-help is that of visualizing oneself as already being successful, yet is this truly helpful? In one study a group of college students who had an important exam coming up were divided into two groups.

One group was told to spend several minutes a day visualizing themselves getting a fantastic grade on the exam. The second group was asked not to do anything along these lines. In both groups the students were asked to record how much time they studied each day.

Counter intuitively the visualization group, while reporting they felt better about themselves, studied less and received lower grades than their counterparts.

It is theorized that those who imagined themselves as already successful were less prepared for any adversity as it arose and due to the escapism the fantasy provided, felt less incentive to put in the necessary effort.

This is not to say that focusing on the future benefits of a desired change isn’t helpful, however there are three other steps you need to take to raise your chances of success. Curious as to what they are?

The four steps Wiseman lists are:

Having a concrete, written plan: first write down your overall goal such as losing a specific amount of weight. Then list any action steps or sub-goals required to make your goal a reality. For example with weight loss it might be selecting a diet and/or exercise plan. To be even more effective, get into specifics such as dates and times of starting and completion, who, what, when, where, etc. Keep a written or computer journal that tracks your progress. Think about this as creating a text book for your success.

Tell friends and family who are supportive about what you intend to do: this creates an accountability factor. If you keep your goal to yourself, its kind of easy to let yourself off the hook when the going gets tough. The desire to appear consistent in your social circle is a very strong one. One caveat, don’t include pessimistic or overly negative people who may have a vested interest in your failure.

Focus on the benefits: in your journal write down how you expect your life to be better once the change is made. Once again, get into specifics.

Plan rewards for completing tasks: say one of your goals is to workout 3 times a week for the next month. Upon completion of that goal give yourself a small reward. Now it shouldn’t conflict with your overall goal, so if say you want to lose weight you shouldn’t reward a week of healthy with a quart of ice cream! Nonetheless you want to create positive associations with completing your tasks.

One additional step I would include would be setting up some form of ongoing encouragement in the form of self-hypnosis, affirmations or even posting positive statements on post-it notes where they will act as an almost subliminal reminder. A certified hypnosis professional can help you in this regard.