It seems that most goal-setting articles start off talking about how difficult it is to lay down goals and follow through them. For a nation obsessed with diets and get rich quick schemes, goal-setting seems to be a harsh discipline that one has to work very hard at to get results.
As most personal trainers will tell you, the problem is not the program, but the person. Pamela Slim covers this in her wonderful blog, Escape from Cubicle Nation, where she lays out her pre-goal setting routine. Pre-Goal Setting? Yes. It’s a matter of putting yourself into the right frame of mind, and focusing on creating an aura of gratitude for what you already are, and then using that confidence to power your goals and their execution.
Current practice tells us that we must be dissatisfied with where we are now in order to make improvements. But what I have found is quite the opposite. You have to be satisfied with yourself as you are now in order to truly appreciate the change in the future.… When you start the goal-setting process by appreciating where you are now, you set in motion a very natural reaction: your external world, evidenced by the shape of your body, your bank account, your home, career and personal relationships wants to mirror the beauty you have inside.”
Different people are motivated in different ways. Some have to feel distressed before they accomplish anything, but the long-term healthy way to make real improvements (and lasting improvements), is to create a rhythm that fits with a positive mental attitude. Change that flows naturally is easier and more in tune with who you are than change that you have to fight for.
So take a page out of Pamela’s book. Start with appreciating who you are and what you’ve already accomplished, and then set goals as to your next accomplishment. You’ll achieve more and feel better while doing so, setting yourself up for even more ambitious goals in the next year.