The Power of 7 Day Goals: 5 Behaviors to Model for Phenomenal Living

When most people think of the goal setting process they think of large, auspicious goals that tend to occupy a lot of mental and behavioral space. Most of us, when we think of goalsetting, think of bigger and more commodious housing, newer, sexier automobiles, vacations, relationships, and any of the other bigger chunks of our lives that we would like to make changes in.

While larger goals are fine and help keep us focused in the direction of our lives’ objective, it really doesn’t hurt to focus on smaller goals; goals that can be accomplished quickly, maybe even in a week!

There are two types of seven-day goal that we should set: one is a larger goal broken down into a behavioral step that we can finish this week. Let’s say that your goal was to lose 50 pounds, your goal this week might be to research gyms. Next week, perhaps, your goal would be to visit the top three gyms you think would be best for your overall fitness goal. You see what we’ve done here,  we took a larger goal, that of losing 50 pounds, and broken into actionable steps the first being to go to several gyms, trying them out and seeing which one we like the best.

The second type of seven-day goal is very simple; it revolves around doing something that we know we should do. Let me give you an example from my consultancy. In my face-to-face, multiweek trainings, I asked participants to set a seven-day personal goal. Something small. Something that was bothering them and that they know they can accomplish in seven days. Perhaps it was a disorganized closet or washing the car. The whole idea was to practice the goalsetting process, seeing results, and then celebrating your accomplishments.

While going around the room and debriefing, one woman in the class said that she did in fact accomplishable her goal; it was to remove her Christmas decorations from her ironing board and put them in the closet where they would be stored until next Christmas. I found this to be somewhat amusing since the class was being held April! I asked her where she did her ironing since her ironing board was being used as a storage area for the moment. She said that she put her clothes in a basket and took them upstairs to the kitchen where she proceeded to iron them on the kitchen counter.

I asked her how she felt about looking at that ironing board with the Christmas decorations on it. And she said that when she viewed the ironing board, now Christmas decoration storage container, it made her mad or depressed. I asked her a second level question: how long did it take you to put those Christmas decorations in the closet, where they should’ve been for the last four months? She said about 10 minutes!

10 minutes to stop feeling angry or depressed!

Think about the power of goalsetting. For four months this woman was feeling emotional overhead every time the visual anchor of the Christmas decorated laden ironing board was observed. She set a goal to remove the obstacle and in 10 minutes was able to perform her ironing and the necessary location.

I asked her how she felt after the ironing board was cleared. With a smile on her face she said, “delighted!” So, a 10 minute behavior, based upon a 7-day goal transformed her anger/depression into feeling delighted!

As you can see the power of the whole process is not only apparent in those gigantic chunks of achievement that we want to accomplish, but can also be evidenced in smaller, actionable steps that we can do quickly.

Here’s a couple ideas to move you in the direction of positive goalsetting and successful behavior:

1.       Set a seven-day career goal and a seven-day personal goal. Everyone has something in their career that they would like to accomplish. Perhaps it’s cleaning out a desk drawer that has for years been a black hole. Perhaps it’s sorting through a file cabinet purging unnecessary files. Regardless there is something at work that is most likely anchoring you negative emotional overhead and can be resolved quickly with setting a seven-day goal to change whatever it is. The same thing applies to home: is there a closet that you’ve been meaning to clean (for several years, perhaps longer)? How about that corner of the garage? A room that needs to be painted? Instead of rationalizing why you can’t do it, why not do it? Just do it! Muster up the mental and physical resolve to get it done! Don’t have the mental and physical resolve to get it done? No problem! Stop whining and reviling and feeling sorry for yourself; move on, and just forget about it! You have determined that whatever it is, it is too hard for you and you don’t want to invest the resources to get it done! Next!

2.       Don’t only set the goal, schedule it. Put it in your calendar and make it an appointment. That way at the appropriate time you will naturally fall in the habit of action. Back to researching the gyms. When will you have the time to spend 90 minutes looking at gym websites? Get it into your calendar and make the appointment with yourself.

3.       Stay enthusiastic! Don’t accomplish your goal with drudgery. If you do you will most likely not set any more goals. And, when you do (IF you do) accomplish your goal, you may have a large degree of resentment built up. Instead, attack your goals with enthusiasm and unbridled abandoned. Because it is that very action that is instilling in you the success attribute of positive goalsetting, one of the strongest behavior modifiers humankind has ever known. You may ask where enthusiasm comes from! It is chosen. You decide if you want to be enthusiastic about a project or not. Yes! It is your choice.

4.       At the end of the week analyze your results. What behaviors did you modify to accomplish your goals? What rationalizations did you hold dear that perhaps kept you from accomplishing your goals? Be honest with yourself! Add more of what you should and delete that which was not helpful.

5.       Celebrate your victories. Each small goal is an accomplishment. Each one is a celebration of your successes. While I’m not suggesting a two-week Caribbean cruise for cleaning out your closet, perhaps a pizza for dinner instead of cooking might be in order. This is important! I was in contact with a person at one time who was not a very deep thinker. He would often say, “Celebrate after victory”. But his whole goal was to never be victorious to the point of celebration. This person spread misery and joylessness wherever he went, and it was a pleasure to not associate with him anymore! (Beware the psychic vampires! The people that latch onto your psyche and suck it dry because them have no ability to generate their own internal levels of enthusiasm!)

So, there you have it. The idea that all goals do not have to be gigantic, and that small goals are just as important. Success has been defined as the progressive, realization, of worthwhile, predetermined, personal goals. Notice that that definition does not mention wealth, or power or fame. It is an empty bucket for you to fill as you please. That means that success is based on goal setting and that success is a habit. So is failure.

What’s your choice?

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