The crowd at your gym has started to thin out, your co-workers are no longer talking about their new diet and your facebook friends posted about already falling off the wagon. It's not just others that fall off though, all of us (including you and me) have made resolutions or goals in the past that we didn't stick to.
How is it that perfectly capable people are unable to stick with something as simple as following a diet plan or only drinking on the weekends?
In the business world we're taught to give S.M.A.R.T. (Simple, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time based) goals to our employees or to ourselves. Others teach us to do daily affirmations while another group may tell us to only focus on 1-3 critical things.
All of these methods can be effective and I've seen them work first hand, however they don't work 100% of the time. These tried and true methods give a great framework for reaching your goals and can help you figure out the tactics necessary to get to where you want to go but they are missing one critical ingredient.
That critical component is the "Why". Simon Sinek has built an entire business around helping people and corporations find their Why and he describes it much more eloquently than I can. However I can break it down to this: Why do you give a shit about your goal?
This is where we fall down in the goal setting process. We think about how great it would be to get in better shape or learn to speak Spanish so we set a SMART goal of "I will learn to speak conversational Spanish before our family trip to Mexico this July". Then we rush out and buy the exercise bike or foreign language audio package and away we go.
Eventually it gets hard, we get bored, or we say "I can take the weekend off and I'll be okay" and then we fall completely off and never achieve what we set out to do. This is where the "Why" becomes so important.
If you want to get in shape or drop 20lbs, great. Why? When you're searching for your "Why" you need to be really honest with yourself. Get beyond the superficial bullshit answers you typically give yourself like "If I drop 20lbs I'll feel better and look better in my clothes".
Why do you want to feel better? Why do you want to look good in your clothes? Be brutally honest with yourself. If you don't it won't work, you have to get to the real "Why". This exercise is best done alone or in your own head so you don't have to worry about someone else knowing your deepest darkest thoughts.
You'll know you're doing it right when you either get a an overwhelming smile or you think to yourself, damn that was dark as you say your "Why".
It doesn't matter what your "Why" is, it only matters that it moves you. Scared you'll die alone at your desk of a heart attack, great lose 40lbs this year. Terrified that if someone attacked your family you couldn't defend them, good keep that picture of your spouse or your children being hurt in your head as your "Why" and then train Jiu Jitsu.
Even if you've already given up on all of your 2020 goals, so what. Sit down, find your "Why" and now get to work. You'll be amazed how if you find a strong enough Why it will pull you towards your goal.
sr45r234534
ReplyDelete