by Rebekah Krieger
Have you set a New Year’s goal that you will automatically fail to achieve? Avoid these 10 mistakes to avoid when goal setting.
1. One of the biggest mistakes people make when setting a goal is setting a tangible physical goal rather than one that speaks to their heart. Avoid setting a goal that you are programmed to like. You simply need to have your target be something that your heart can relate to, and you will be juiced up by it every time you think about it.
2. Don’t set your goal in the negative. For instance, if your goal is to loose weight, you don’t want to say “I will NOT eat fattening foods.” When you say that to yourself, your brain doesn’t process the “not” or “don’t”, all your brain hears is “eat fattening foods”. You are focused on what NOT to do rather than what you CAN do. Try telling yourself “I will eat veggies in replacement of unhealthy food”, and your brain can digest that better (no pun intended).
3. Don’t set your goals in the future, frame them in the present! If you tell yourself “I will earn a promotion” it tells your brain that your goal is far fetched and discipline to achieve it is not going to give you gratification any time soon so why bother. Tell yourself “I am earning a promotion” and then all of your actions are immediately going toward it.
4. Don’t set a goal on a moving target. Have an absolute finish line to cross. Focus on something that will not change like a pair of jeans you hope to fit into. There should be an absolute moment of success that you will have to know that your goal is achieved.
5. Affirmations don’t work. Here’s why… the minute you say “I am a size zero” or “I am a millionaire in the making” your brain immediately calls your bluff. It says “no you aren’t fatty” or “you’ll never get to million liar”. It takes 10 positive responses to overcome a negative one. If you are told you are fat a single time, it takes 10 people to call you skinny for it not to be an issue any longer. Every time you say an affirmation your brain is reversing what you want it to do. Affirmations become self destruction. Capture the vision of the moment of achieving your goal and play that moment in your head on a regular basis. Think about how its going to feel when you get that moment.
6. Don’t set a deadline on a goal with results you can’t control. If your goal is to get a booking, you know that the booking is not in your hands, it’s in the client’s hands. As a business person you know that getting a yes is a numbers game, and you CAN control how many calls you make. If your booking average is 1 in 5 calls, you know that you should focus on 5 calls, not the booking. Focus on completing steps you know are required to achieve your goal.
7. Don’t set a goal that is emotionally unsafe. If you feel that money is the root of all evil and your goal is to become a millionaire, you will purposely avoid success so to not become evil. That principal applies to all goals; many people sabotage their own success because they don’t know how it relates to their purpose in life. Procrastination usually indicates a weakness in clearly knowing your purpose and what your heart wants to do (vs. your head). Your head can want a million all day long and it will never happen if your heart does not agree with it. The answer to this is to either find a new goal, or find a way to be ok with it.
8. Don’t set perfection as a result! Perfection kills your results. Perfection is not possible. So if your goal is to be a perfect spouse, have a perfect body, or be a perfect parent, you fail the second you set your goal. Remember, June Cleaver was a fictional character. Replace the word “perfect” with the word “excellent”. The word excellent is empowering and a lot easier to achieve.
9. Don’t focus on the pain of discipline! Focus on the pleasure you will later get. If you want to eat a bag of popcorn, you are probably thinking of the pleasure now of eating it, or the pain of not eating it. But if you think about the pleasure you will get when you fit into those smaller jeans or the pain when you have to try on swimwear if you DID eat that popcorn, its easier to determine which is the greater pleasure.
10. Don’t think of it as stepping out of your comfort zone!! When we think of achieving a goal and the need to step out of our comfort zone to get it, we think of how uncomfortable and painful it is outside of our comfort zone. If you word this to your mind by saying “you will need to have a lot of new experiences to achieve this goal” it’s a much easier thing to be ok with. Nobody wants to be uncomfortable, but we all love new experiences.
Rebekah Krieger is an Independent Sales Director with Mary Kay
Understanding your purpose and passion in life helps kill procrastination in its tracks. I always followed the standard goal setting ways until I realized that my 6 month goal was the same goal for several years. Knowing that fact made me realize that I was living in insanity (doing the same thing over and over expecting different results) Its a definate indication that its time to do something new.
Some of these opinions seem to fly in the face of the usual goal setting advice you read. For that reason I think this article is a good catalyst to challenge your thoughts!