If you dread annual goal setting at work or you want to make some lifestyle changes but haven’t had much success in the past, you’re not alone. Most goals set as New Year’s resolutions fail. Most lifestyle changing programs of weight loss, smoking cessation, and financial improvement are unsuccessful. Many people struggle when setting goals of life improvement. Following are some common mistakes and what you can do to avoid them.
- Pitfall: Your Goal is too general
It’s very important that a goal be clear, specific, and unambiguous. A goal to lose weight is too general to provide the motivation and energy needed to change eating habits and begin exercising. Defining an amount to lose is good; determining a target weight is better.
For example, getting a better job is ambiguous. What characterizes a better job? More money, greater satisfaction, fewer hours, shorter commute? These and many other factors can be important to your job satisfaction. Without a clear understanding of the job factors important to you, you’ll either do nothing about a new job or change for the sake of change.
Ask and answer the following question, “How will I know when I get there?” This will help you consider specific end results you’re seeking.
- Pitfall: The goal isn’t really your goal
Someone influential has foisted a goal on you that you would never set for yourself. Sometimes this is unavoidable, as when your boss gives you the goal. In that case, make the best of it by looking for some aspect of your boss’s goal that feels good as your own goal.
Example: Maybe your boss wants you to take on a new responsibility and you don’t find that attractive in the least. Perhaps you do like to learn new things, in which case focus on learning the responsibility as your goal.
If you’ve had a goal for a long time but have made little progress toward achieving it, the goal may not be your goal. In this case perhaps you feel this should be your goal, but after some soul searching you may find you really do not want to achieve that goal.
- Pitfall: Sharing your goal with the wrong people
Who are the wrong people? Anyone not willing or able to unconditionally support you, even when you backslide. Changing something about your life is tough enough, you don’t need someone holding your failure over your head and using it against you.
Share your goal only with people you can trust to help you.
- Pitfall: Setting a goal to change a behavior without substituting another behavior that will bring the same benefit
Over the years we pick up habits and behaviors because they bring us benefits. Perhaps years later we discover these behaviors also have harmful side affects.
Smoking relaxes, but increases the risk of cancer. Comfort foods provide comfort, but their fat content promotes heart ailments. Alcohol reduces inhibitions, but impedes your ability to drive and can lead to addiction.
Reflect on the benefit(s) you’ll be losing if you achieve your goal and substitute another, healthier source for that benefit. If your goal is to stop smoking, provide another source for relaxation; exercise, meditation, or yoga might be an answer.
- Pitfall: Focusing only on the primary change associated with the goal and failing to realize that other things will change too
Your conscious mind may ignore secondary changes, but your subconscious probably will notice them and may block your progress toward the goal.
Example: That promotion you’re working so hard to get promises higher pay and a new title. Subconsciously, you may realize that the greater responsibilities will take away from your family time. This may conflict with your conscious drive to get the promotion, effectively blocking it.
- Pitfall: Setting a goal that’s too challenging or too easy
The best goals are challenging enough to interest and energize us, but not so far out that we can’t see ourselves ever achieving them. Goals that are too easy are just as bad as those that are too difficult. Either way, we’re not motivated. And motivation is critical to goal attainment.
Related Articles: Easy Creative Goal Setting, More Goal Setting Articles
Jerry
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_a.png?x-id=1d0c7caa-9501-4690-b9b8-260fa1bd6121)
Similar Posts:
- Are You Sure That You Haven’t Reached Your Goals?
- Easy Creative Goal Setting
- Ebooks on Goal Setting and Your Subconscious Mind
- Gotta Get Goals!
- Self-Discipline for Success
{ 1 trackback }
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Excellent article, Jerry. Just this morning, I was contemplating just how many of my own goals aren’t really mine at all. Some are what others expect of me, or at least what I believe they expect of me.
Thanks for the clarity, and your continued additions to Creating a Better Life.
Pitfall: sharing your goal with the wrong people.
This one is a big one for me. I actually had to stop sharing my goal because most people who I shared it with actually torn and ripped my dreams into pieces. The effects are very devastating on any person. People telling you that you can’t do this and you can’t do that.
But luckily I have the determination to pick up the pieces and put it all together again
Re: substituting another behavior that will bring the same benefit
I was just talking to a friend last night about that. He hasn’t been enjoying hosting parties at his house, but he isn’t replacing the experience with something else that would fun or challenging or more in sync with his personal goals.
How’s the saying go? “If all the right things were planted in the garden, there would be no room for weeds.”