GOAL SETTING = SPRING CLEAN

Behaviour change. Goal Setting, Contemplation. Solutions and opportunity. Why?

In many ways the spring is way better than the new year for starting new goals.

If your new year goals have waned. Start now.

When we want to change the way, we look, feel and perform invariably this will mean changing the way we behave. Our habits, actions and so on.

?This will mean working towards something. A goal.

?A goal is defined as: A process that establishes specific, time-based behaviour targets that are measurable, achievable, and realistic. In work-related settings, for example, this practice usually provides employees with both (a) a basis for motivation, in terms of effort expended, and (b) guidelines or cues to behaviour that will be required if the goal is to be met. Goal setting is effective only if individuals concerned are aware of what is to be accomplished and accept the goals for themselves, believing in their attainability. Source (https://dictionary.apa.org/goal-setting)

?A goalless life is like being a ship without a sail. Or a rudder for that matter.

?The other way to look at goal setting is around the “How of Happiness” Happy people have projects. Sonia Lyubomirsky. It’s really an excellent book. Below are some take homes from the goal setting chapter and how it relates to happiness.

?For a goal to help with happiness it needs to be:

Happy people tend to have meaningful goals that ignite their passion and contribute to their long-term happiness. The benefits of setting and pursuing such goals are numerous, but it's crucial that these goals are both intrinsic and authentic. Intrinsic goals are those you are genuinely passionate about and invested in because they hold personal significance. Authentic goals are truly your own, not influenced by others.

Moreover, adopting approach goals, rather than avoidance goals, and maintaining flexibility in recognizing appropriate goals can enhance your happiness.

For instance, Lyubomirsky contrasts two goals: "spending more time outdoors" and "building my business." These goals often conflict, highlighting the importance of aligning your goals to prevent unnecessary stress and frustration. Additionally, activity-based goals encourage continuous new experiences, which not only increase happiness but also help you avoid hedonic adaptation.

Interestingly, the journey towards your goals often brings more happiness than actually achieving them. An essential lesson from chapter 8 is that "happiness comes from pursuing goals, not necessarily from achieving them." Enjoying the process is key, as once you reach your goals, you might face hedonic adaptation and need to set new, more ambitious goals. Even if you don't achieve your goals, the pursuit should be enjoyable and fulfilling.

The chapter concludes with a story about an extraordinary teacher, Mr. Schwengel. One of the final lines is, "Deciding to become happier entails making a choice about which perspective you take and acknowledging that the choice is in your hands." This quote emphasizes that 40% of your happiness is within your control; you just need to know how to manage it.

ARE YOU READY TO CHANGE?

?Not feeling the need to change is either out of satisfaction with present conditions OR through a lack of self-awareness. The problem for some people has not been identified. This is known as readiness to change.

?SUDDEN SELF-AWARENESS

?When the sun’s starts to shine – many people will suddenly identify with the need and realisation that they may not have shed that winter weight. They’ve identified a ‘what’ – what is it? It’s excess fat, stored energy – which makes you feel upset with your body image, clothes feel tighter and you may feel less attractive. For physical performance, if you are involved in sports where power to weight ratio is important, the excess weight might hamper your ability to perform at your maximum.

?Life is full of information. There’s more than we’d ever be able to read and assimilate in terms of plans ‘the what’ and ‘the how’ are clearly out there and easy to find.

?The next thing people start to think about is the ‘how’. Once they’ve gained suitable self-awareness (some people also lack self-awareness). People will say – ok, what’s the plan? How do I go about changing the what?

?Again, there’s heaps of plans and ways to get results. Most of them work, often for reasons different to those claimed on the mechanisms behind the solution. For diets most of them apply some rules, which act in some way as a filter, which involves creating a deficit of some kind combined with some exercise.

?Given it’s so easy to measure things and so easy to find solutions to these things, why is it we often struggle to make the changes we need to and maintain them?

?PLEASURE PAIN CONTINUUM

?Well, this boils down to the ‘why’ and this in turn boils down to a cost benefit ratio of the shorter-term alterations in the way you act and choose to the longer-term outcomes which result from these choices. These cost benefit ratios tie directly into a pleasure pain continuum – how much is the lack of perceived pleasure, or indeed sense of pain going to be worth the longer-term outcomes associated with the longer-term behaviour change.

?The main activities associated with pleasure will have a potential degree of associated addiction. I will talk more about addiction and ceasing addictive habits below. For now I want you to think about this concept. If you remove something. You need to replace it with something else. This is particularly true of addictive habits.

?For example, if you want to give up cookies – the net result might be hankering after them each day when the cookie trolley comes out at work – it does in so many offices these days.

?The short-term pain of discipline will outweigh the longer-term pain of regret.

?The other way to phrase this is the addict can only stop the behaviour once the pain of addiction is greater than the pain of withdrawal. Powerful stuff.

?So, the cookie addict has to weigh up the pain of a higher body fat, visceral fat and BMI which might have resulted from over consumption of cookies, versus the drop in clothes sizes and sense of better self-esteem, lower body fat and other beneficial effects on your longer-term health from adopting a filter habit such as this.

?Obviously how you tell yourself you feel about giving up the cookies goes a long way toward whether you actually feel this as a withdrawal or loss. Or, alternatively a positive, new habit and one which makes you feel empowered. This process might be called reframing. It takes time, and emotional intelligence. Or at least a degree of self-control and reflective behaviour.

?It requires at some level a sense of inner strength and is not always possible across all areas of an individual’s life. We can for example have excellent goal setting and control in certain spheres of your life and influence. In other areas, maybe not so much.

?The point about this really is spending some real time on the vision or the ‘why’ is really, really important to successful longer-term behaviour changes.

?GOAL = DROPPING BODY FAT

?When you sit down and go through all the areas around which say dropping fat might be a good idea – then often the cost / benefit ratio starts to look quite good. Then when you apply the ‘how’ and you are faced with difficult choices – reaffirming the ‘why’ keeps you steadfast in your behaviours.

?List the Cost / Benefits Ratio of adopting a new habit and dropping an old habit and Project these into the future. Write down how you’ll feel, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 years into the future is you keep to your new chosen path.

?WHAT’S YOUR BIGGEST LIMITING FACTOR?

?I love the scene in ‘braking bad’ when he’s faced with the choice of whether he has to kill the rival dealer, he writes a long list of reasons why killing is bad. Then on the list of reasons why he should kill this guy he just writes (from memory) if you don’t, he’ll kill you and your whole family. 20 reasons why he shouldn’t do it, 1 essential reason why he should.

?Losing fat isn’t normally that cut and dry – it’s often a nice to have rather than a must have. This might be why the nations losing its battle against fat, against obesity, diabetes and cancer. All of which are on the increase. Plus the addictive natural of food, obesogenic environment and all of that.

?I often wonder why this is. It must be, in my opinion a mixture between desire (instinct to eat) and availability of poor food choices. There’s a lot of other super complex stuff in there too involved with emotion, financial stability and opportunity – subject for another post, but ultimately, we are programmed to eat, if we are hungry and given the wrong addictive foods to eat – without education then continued poor choices are the obvious result.

?Ultimately, it’s this lack of strength, control or will power to sustain withdrawal from our addictive tendencies, over our instinct to overeat or lack of self-awareness (what’s wrong with being fat) everyone else is! Which might be part of the problem. It’s a lack of vision and hope for a better version of yourself.

?BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE AND STOP WHINING?

?Creating a harder mind set is essential in this situation. Feeling hungry? Feeling like things are getting hard. Well Boo Hoo – it’s kind of time to suck that one up. Grit your teeth and battle through, after all you are working towards the greater good.

?Reframing the pleasure pain continuum – all part of being strong for life. Part of the Amino Man code. Some people call this turning discipline into blissipline!

?This is simply referring to a mixture of reframing plus learning to like things which were previously hard to do. A couple of examples might be interval training and letting go of alcohol.

?Interval training is hard. At first you feel uncomfortable, outside your comfort zone, firmly. Achiness, out of breath etc. Later once adaptation has occurred the discomfort fades, you are still out of breath etc. but you feel better about doing it. Afterwards you have a delicious after glow which lasts for hours from the endorphins.

?With alcohol the initial withdrawal can be tough. You miss the escape, warm glow and ultimately your brain misses the dopamine hit. However, after a while the clarity and freedom gained from a reduction or avoidance of alcohol intake brings with it a number of physical, mental and even spiritual benefits.

?Keeping a track of these benefits is a good idea, listing the good and the bad things about your present situation and the good things about changing our situations.

?Wanna get started fast, skip to the quick start fat loss guide and also the Amino Man DNA guide which gives you some of the background to staying strong for life and other areas we believe are part of keeping strong for life.

Join me for a spring clean www.strengthforlife.mn.co