Forget about setting Goals!
“Forget about setting goals!” - This headline caught my eye recently. I’ve always set goals and my work in the fitness industry has involved promoting goal setting as a top priority. So, have I been doing it all wrong? I had to read on to find out.
By Jo Vartanian
You know the statistics about New Year’s Resolutions. They’re not good! People set goals every New Year only to be back to their usual patterns just a few weeks later. There’s even a day called “quitter’s day” - the day on which people who have made New Year’s fitness resolutions, are most likely to give it up - and it’s on Jan 19th.
Seems there is a real problem with setting goals and experts reveal why.
The Problem with Goals
1. Winners and losers share the same goals, so it’s not the goals that get the results.
2. Achieving a goal only changes your life for the moment. Most of us want lifelong change.
3. Happiness is achieved when you reach your goal but what about the rest of the time?
4. After accomplishing a goal most people revert to their old habits.
Great you say…I never liked setting goals! But you do want to make some changes.
I had a light bulb moment a couple of years ago sitting in a fitness conference lecture with a bunch of “Type A Fitness Professionals” – you know the type – they always seem to manage to be out exercising at full throttle before the sun is up, make green smoothies, stick to their nutrition plans and achieve incredible physical feats because they set incredible goals. The lecturer, a well-known Dietition, who has struggled with her own weight for years said “you have to realise that you guys are in the top 5% of the population for adherence to programs for fitness and nutrition. You’re just not normal”. Ah hah…most of my clients are not like me, she was saying.
If goal setting doesn’t work, how do I help women get fitter, climb a mountain, lose weight, take that amazing trip, get stronger, run that race, improve health…the list is endless. I need to help them with planning and adherence because that’s the challenging bit that most people fail with and that’s where I come in as trainer, coach, mentor, teacher and friend.
The point is, setting the goal WILL NOT MAKE THE CHANGE happen. Goals set the direction but it’s ACTION SYSTEMS that make the change happen. Systems are the processes you put in place to achieve a result and they are primarily about taking action. For example, if you’re a trekker and your goal is to climb a mountain, your system is how often you train, how you will learn about gear and how you will gain experience before you go.
ACTION SYSTEMS will not only ensure progress towards your goal, more importantly, you can be happy for good, not just in the moment you reach your goal.
Here are my BEST tips on creating sustainable ACTION SYSTEMS.
1. Know why you want to change or pursue a particular goal – do it for you.
2. The bigger and scarier the goal, the more likely you are to put in place and stick to your action systems.
3. Identify obstacles that work against you and problem solve to remove them.
4. Make it social – find a support buddy to join you in your new action systems and hang out with people who support your systems.
5. Spend time planning and writing down your action systems – do this thoroughly once, then follow the plan.
6. Remove the negative triggers – replace things that take you away from your action system with things that move you towards it.
7. Know your “CHOICE POINTS” for example, when the alarm goes off at 5:30 am to go to training – remind yourself of why you are doing this, what your goal is.
8. Evaluate and monitor your progress according to your action systems, not just by results for example, how many training sessions did I attend, NOT how much weight did I lose.
If building a life-long system of healthy habits and behaviours resonates with you, then you may need to make the shift that moves you away from thinking about singular accomplishments and more about a cycle of regular accomplishments, endless refinement and continuous improvement. Join in for the long game.
“Results have very little to do with goals and nearly everything to do with systems.” James Clear (Author, Motivational Speaker & Athlete)