Start Simple
Most people love checklists because it
feels awesome to cross off items and feel accomplished. The accomplishment part
is great. The long list? Not so much. Whether or not you realize it, you’re
laying the foundation for failure.
Success depends on consistency more
than anything. So instead of asking, “What do I want to accomplish?” ask,
"What’s the easiest thing I can do every day that will help me toward my
goal?”
The "every day" part is
important, because we’re shifting your mindset away from nuanced, difficult
tasks to practical, doable ones. When you do good, you feel good.
Success breeds success, and that creates habit. And habit makes everything
easier. That’s the real goal: making change feel almost too easy.
If you swear off alcohol and then go
out with your friends the first weekend in January, you might feel torn: Stay
with your goal or break it? Do what you love or do what you feel is necessary
to succeed?
Those are not questions you want to be
faced with. At least, not initially. Instead you want to create a different
construct. Start with simpler tasks you can master. For example:
I will eat vegetables twice per day.
I will sleep at least seven hours per
night.
I will drink two glasses of water with
every meal.
I will go to the gym three times during
the week.
You could list endless habits that are
designed to build behaviors. But start with one task and one only. Go slow to
go fast. Trust me on this one. You do not need to eat chicken and broccoli for
every meal, every day. You’ll thank me come April when you’re still kicking
ass, instead of jumping off the wagon before January is even over.
Making change is hard. No one wants to
admit it, but it’s true. So don’t make it harder by creating too many goals at
once or by focusing on goals that seem like scaling a mountain instead of going
for a walk. You’ll get to the mountain, but it’s better to build up momentum.
Make It Easy on Yourself
The other key is to leave room for
imperfection. Let's say your goal is: “I will go to the gym three times during
the week." Setting a goal of three times should not be your goal if you
think that's the maximum amount you'll be able to go per week. Because if
you're slammed at work and only make it to the gym once, you'll feel like
you've failed.
Since you want to create behaviors that
are easy, seamless, and become habitual, you might want to set a goal of two
times per week. Declare that it will happen
and then make sure you hit your two sessions every week without fail.
You want to make it as easy as possible
to succeed. We all are susceptible to a psychological concept called
"learned helplessness": Fail enough, and you come to expect failure.
This is the foundation of bad fitness. Yet, all too often we set goals that
increase the likelihood of failure. If you make your goals easy, you’re on the
right track. Small successes will create positive reinforcement.
Give yourself two to three weeks to
crush each mini-goal. Once you're consistently hitting the gym twice per week
(or whatever makes sense for you), then add another goal. Then another. Each
opportunity will give you the chance to build a habit you can master. As time
goes on, you can make the goals much more specific and difficult. But when you
do, you’ll be building on a solid foundation of habits that will make it very
difficult to slide back to the old you.
It’s a Jedi mind trick for kicking ass.
It's the equivalent of saying: “Don’t focus on the grade you want in a class;
put all your energy into learning the material.” When that happens, it’s hard
not to succeed.
I wish you a year of small victories,
imperfection, and cheesecake (OK, maybe the cheesecake is for me). Whatever you
do, don’t paint the picture of a life you wouldn’t want to live. It’s not
necessary and definitely is not needed in order to achieve your health and
fitness goals.
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