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Staying on Track with Goals
Marilyn Orr
I remember being amazed at how many women were pregnant when I was. Of course the number of women pregnant at the time was no higher.
When something is on our consciousness in a different way we notice it more. If I buy a new car, “all of a sudden” I am noticing that car around everywhere.
This is how our brain works.
That funny saying is relevant here - “Don’t think about a pink elephant!”
One of the best ways to stay on track with our goals and new patterns of behavior is to find ways that keep them front of mind - ways to be very conscious of them.
Using MyFitnessPal, is an example of a way to keep your eating and activity front of mind through logging throughout the day.
What we focus on definitely gets more energy.
Have you taken time lately to choose an area to grow in? It might be personal, it might be professional. It might be health-related or an area you want to study. Whether you are a strongly driven person or someone who is quite happy with the status quo, growth is always relevant.
Once you have selected an area for growth and have created strategy and steps for moving forward it’s also great to put some safeguards in place to make sure your growth does not get ignored or put on the back burner.
This is a process I take clients through when we are finishing up a coaching series. Let’s say you have created a strategy for checking emails less frequently. You’ve started a new habit - checking 3 times per work day. This starts to feel like a new habit but then life gets busy. Your new habit is at risk. What will bring you back first to notice that you have stopped your new habit and also to remind you of why it was such a good strategy?
What will keep you conscious of your goals, strategies and behaviors that you want to make in to new habits?
Here are some ideas:
- Put a weekly, monthly, etc. reminder in to your calendar on repeat
- Place visual reminders for yourself
- Ask a friend or colleague to ask you specific questions at a specific time to check in
- Mail yourself a letter with reminders
- Create a system for rewarding your new behaviors that you have to interact with - this may be an app you can download or simply a jar for marbles to reinforce new behaviors
- Set alarms for the times that you want to do new behaviors
- Give yourself a weekly strategic thinking time and include a check-in time with yourself
The industry for tools to help with reminders for exercise and diet has become huge. What lessons can we learn from these tools and apps for other areas in our life that we want to grow?
What skill or habit do you want to grow?
What supports will you put in place to support the maintenance of that growth?
Until next week,
Marilyn
Marilyn Orr is a Professional Certified Coach, who, through her coaching business “ Capacity Building Coaching ”, thrives on building both personal and organization capacity through leadership coaching and development.
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