If you’re like the large majority of people, along with the 2016 New Year came great intentions to achieve your goals.
Lose weight, get a new job, get out of debt, be more productive, etc.
You mentally committed to achieving a new, big goal this year. However, as you read this today, with January now in the rear-view mirror, how much closer are you to any of those goals?
It’s frustrating and it’s very common. I still get frustrated when I think of how many years I wasted following poor advice and incomplete methods related to goal-achievement strategies.
If you’ve read this blog or listened to the podcast (specifically this episode) you know that even once I started following the S.M.A.R.T. goals method, it still didn’t work.
I’m not writing this to bash on SMART goals, but I am here to help people – people like myself and perhaps you, who’ve become frustrated with poor strategies and guidance related to goal achievement.
Unfortunately, even many of the larger, more popular blogs related to goal achievement and productivity don’t appear to get it. It’s common to find posts that promote statements such as, “Habits are better than goals,” or, “Why goals are bad” (which is nuts!). Here’s a prior article from a few years ago that provides 9 reasons habit is the key to goal achievement
Not only do SMART goals miss the critical inclusion of HABIT in the process of goal achievement, but SMART goals also miss another critical element: environment, or to put it another way, “your operating environment or maybe even, ‘system'”— which is the context or space in which you are trying to operate in order to modify your behavior to achieve your goal.
The significance of creating and tailoring a supportive environment for your goal cannot be overstated.
If, for instance, your goal is:
Getting out of debt: Then, cutting-up your credit cards would be a way to tailor your operating environment.
Being more productive and focusing better: Then, turning off your phone, closing email or any of a dozen other ways to minimize distractions would be a way to tailor your operating environment to support your new behaviors (habits) and goal.
Lose weight: Then, perhaps eliminating the ____________ or, beer from the fridge will help you to achieve your goal.
All of these sound a bit obvious, but from my experience, few people actually take the steps necessary to tailor their “operating environment.” In this podcast episode I reviewed the 3 “ments” – replacement, environment, and experiment – when it comes to behavior change and creating new habits to support your goal’s achievement.
Knowing how to intentionally craft and align positive habits (using the P.A.R.R. methodology Video) to your goals is a critical first step. Then it’s critical to construct a supportive environment to foster the necessary habits and accelerate goal achievement.
The Pressure Paradox acknowledges and demonstrates exactly how our environment (in particular pressure) affects our ability to create the habits needed to achieve mastery of any particular skill or performance.
If you’re feeling a bit stuck, haven’t been able to realize the traction you’d hoped for this new year and you’re looking for a powerful Kickstart Tool, I invite you grab my FREE 43-page super-easy-to-follow BEST YEAR EVER Kickstart PDF.
Remember, “Each New Year begins a new day and each new day a New Year!”
