Goals.

What feeling does that word bring up for you? Anxiety? Excitement?

I love goals. They represent hope for change. They allow me to dream about the future and picture what I truly want.

Although I’ve always been a goal-setter, the way I set and work towards my goals has dramatically changed over the years.

I used to use the shoot for the moon approach. That is, I would set long lists of goals and achieve very few. One summer in elementary school a friend and I made a list called “Things to do this Summer.” We probably had 50+ things on the list, and maybe did 5-6. Some of the unfulfilled goals included: build a kite and fly it, eat a whole tomato and eat a raw potato. True story.

My approach is different now because I:

1. Set goals more intentionally and ensure they are aligned with my most important values. After further reflection, eating a raw potato probably wasn’t super aligned. But hey, I was 8.
2. Make sure I have systems and habits in place to achieve the goals. Using the kite example, this would have included doing some research on how to build a kite that would actually fly.

Setting the Right Goals in the First Place

As I talked about in my last post, if you struggle with motivation for your goals, it’s possible that they aren’t your goals at all, but goals set for someone else.

Today’s post will cover:

1. Making sure your goals are based on your values
2. Setting up systems to ensure you achieve them

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT, for short) is a well-validated psychotherapy that addresses a wide range of psychological problems including anxiety, depression, health behaviors (weight loss, managing diabetes) and many more (Hayes, 2016).

ACT guides you through the process of clarifying your most important values, so you can focus less on getting rid of uncomfortable thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations, and more on ensuring your behaviors are in line with your values.

This is essential because when we set goals based on our most important values, we are more internally motivated to meet them. This is because you have dug deep to determine why you value what you do. The more you are in touch with your underlying reasons, the more you maintain consistent motivation needed to meet your goals.

Determining Your Why

I have run many groups for people struggling with stress and/or binge eating. In the group we make a list called 10 Reasons Why I Value Developing Healthier Eating and Exercise Behaviors.

People often start with reasons like:

• I want to improve my cholesterol
• I want to feel comfortable in a bathing suit
• I want to fit into my old clothes

Reasons like this can be a good start, but are they going to get you out of bed on a cold morning to exercise? Will they convince you peel yourself off the couch in the evening and prep lunches for the next day when your next Netflix episode is loading?

For me, they would not. In fact, they did not. I used to reflect on these types of motivators all the time and wonder why I couldn’t be consistent with shifting my habits.

To achieve more powerful reasons for change, we need to dig deeper. The more your reasons move you emotionally, the better.

Digging Deep on Your Reasons

If your reason was I want to improve my cholesterol or any similar outcome related to your health, I would want to have the following conversation with you:

• You: I want to improve my cholesterol.
• Me: Why is that really important to you?
• You: I want to be healthy and avoid a heart attack.
• Me: Why is that important to you?
• You: I want to be around for my children.
• Me: Why specifically is that important? What do you need to be around for?
• You: I want to see them grow up, help them be the people they are meant to be, and model healthy behaviors so they can live their healthiest, happiest life. I am terrified of dying early like my father did and missing out on their lives. I also want to be well enough that I can walk my daughter down the aisle at her wedding and do a energetic father-daughter dance with her!

You see, NOW we are getting somewhere.

The more specific you get, the better. And the more the reason brings up emotion (could be excitement, sadness, fear), the better. A reason that gets the tears flowing or makes your heart beat more quickly is typically one that will motivate you even when you are exhausted.

These are the types of reasons that get us going and keep us going on a consistent basis.

Walking You Through the Process

To walk through this process step-by-step, and then apply it to your specific goals, download my free guide so you can record your answers. We will walk through the following steps:

1. Values clarification
2. Goal-setting based on these values
3. Digging deeper to determine your most powerful reasons for change

Step 1: Clarifying Your Values

1. Review the 10 valued areas in the graphic above, then choose your top 3 and list them in my free guide.
   • Note: You may add an area not listed. Choose the values you want to clarify and improve right now. Not choosing a value does not mean it is not important to you, just that it is not a major area of focus at this time.
   • For example, you might feel good about how things are going in your career, or with your spirituality, and therefore not list it because it isn’t an area you feel compelled to significantly change or improve right now.
2. Write the valued area in the Value column of the worksheet (e.g., Parenting, Marriage).
3. In the Description column, write a 1-2 sentence description of the value about how you would like to be in that area of your life (e.g., “I want to be a present and loving partner who is supportive and accepting” or “I want to set an example for my children of how to balance a career I’m passionate about, while also taking care of myself and being present with them”).
4. In the Rating column, rate your current performance in each area from 1-10. How well are you living out this value right now?
   1. A score of 1 indicates that your behaviors are very inconsistent with your values (e.g., you value your health and well-being, but are rarely taking time to go to medical visits, aren’t eating well, and aren’t exercising regularly)
   1. A score of 10 means you are doing absolutely everything you can to live out this value
   1. A 5 would mean you are acting in accordance with your value about half of the time

Step 2: Set Goals Based on Your Values

A lot of times our goal-setting instincts lead us to set vague goals that set us up for failure.

What do you think is more likely to result in behavior change?

• Sleep more.
• Get up at 6:00am every day, and start bedtime routine with goal to be in bed by 10:30pm each night.

Setting Smart Goals

The second version is a SMART goal and is much more likely to lead to change than the first goal, which is vague.

SMART goals follow the SMART acronym:

1. Specific: Has a clear description of what you want to accomplish
   • No: Eat more vegetables
   • Yes: Add vegetables to breakfast at least 3 days per week
2. Measurable: Includes a clear metric that helps define success
   • No: Meditate
   • Yes: Meditate at least 5 minutes, 4 days per week
3. Attainable: Make it challenging, but realistic and do-able
   1. No: Currently you aren’t exercising at all, and you set a goal to do so 6 days per week for an hour
   2. Yes: Start with a more realistic goal (maybe 3 days per week depending on your circumstances) and go from there
4. Relevant: Make sure it’s consistent with what is important to you and a priority at this time
   1. We only have so many hours in the day, so make sure most of your goals and habits are moving the needle on your most important goals. Getting clear on your top values should already help with this part.
5. Time Sensitive: Set a date for when the goal should be achieved
   1. This can be short-term (e.g., weekly goal), medium-term (e.g., monthly or quarterly) or long-term (yearly), however, at least some of the goals should be shorter-term so that you can get clear on what habits need to change immediately, since this is key for long-term success.
   2. Choose a time frame that feels do-able but is also exciting to you.

Goals Versus Values

Remember, the value is the direction you want to go (e.g., be a more supportive friend) and the goal is the specific behavior consistent with that value (e.g., send a text to my two closest friends to check in at least once per week). Here are a few more examples.

Value	Goal(s)
Keeping my family as healthy as possible	1) Grocery shop at least once per week 2) Make sure we are cooking a home-cooked veggie-heavy meal at least 2 times per week
Work towards financial security to free up the ability to do work I am passionate about	1) Save 10% of my income for retirement this year 2) Track spending on food and use results to set a realistic limit on non-grocery food expenses (e.g., take out)
Be present with my children and engage in learning alongside them	1) Take them to at least 2 zoos this year, and 1 aquarium (more of a non-pandemic goal, but you get the gist)

Step 3: Dig Deeper on Your Top Value to Discover the Reasons That Really Motivate You

1. The worksheet should now be completed with your top values and 3-6 goals related to your most important values.
2. I’m going to ask you to do one final step to increase your chances of staying motivated for these goals over the long-term. I want you to dig even deeper to clarify the reason these values are important to you. I suggest you do this just for one top area for now, and really get clear on why it matters to you. Put a star by the value that is most important to you.
3. Enter the value on the blank line below. For example, you might write “5 reasons I value developing healthier eating and exercise behaviors”
4. Next, we are going to dig deeper, just like we did with the “for my health” examples above. Review your reason, and keep asking yourself why that’s so important to you? Do this over and over until you get a really specific reason that will compel you to get out of bed and move towards whatever goal you set for yourself in that area.
5. Write the top 5 reasons that really get you excited. Bring up emotion and/or the deepest “whys” you can come up with and write them in the table in the worksheet.
6. Print this list or re-write somewhere you can review it regularly (e.g., the bathroom mirror, the fridge, a journal you review each morning before starting your day, a note/alarm on your phone).

5 Evidence-based Ways to Improve Your Likelihood of Meeting Your Goals

I hope you completed the above steps and have some goals you are really excited about working towards. Below are some simple and effective tips for shifting your habits and making your goals more likely.

1. Make Your Ideal Habit the Default Habit

You have heard me talk about the importance of our environment. We have so many decisions to make on a daily basis, and this tires out our brain. It is essential to put some of our habits on autopilot so they do not take so much conscious effort. And one of the best ways to do that is to structure our environment to make the healthy habit the easy one.

One of my favorite examples of this is from Dr. Kelly Brownell, a researcher at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. He talks about the importance of “optimal defaults.” Did you know that when it comes to organ donation, countries that have an “opt-in” policy have rates of organ donation substantially lower than countries that have an “opt-out” policy? And we are not talking small differences, the countries where they need to sign up to be an organ donor have donation rates of 4.25 to 27.5%, whereas countries where people must take a step to opt-out of organ donation have rates ranging from 85.9% to 99.9% (Johnson & Goldstein, 2003).

Same Choices with Drastic Differences in Behavior

This isn’t about taking away choices, it’s about making things easier on your brain to make the choice that you determined was the best choice for you. In the organ example, the choice is the exact same (donate your organs or do not) but there are drastic differences in behavior based on what the default choice is. We are busy people who have a lot going on so if you make the healthiest choice the default choice, we are much more likely to just go with that.

Similarly, when a large employer changed the default option for participation in a retirement plan from an “opt-in” to an “opt-out” plan, participation in the plan went from ~58%-80% to upwards of 95% (Beshears et al., 2009).

Applying Optimal Defaults to Eating Habits

Examples of this applied to other goals include:

• Not bringing tempting foods into the home
• Having pre-cut veggies sitting at the front of your fridge in a clear container
• Planning out your meals and having them ready to go with minimal prep work required
• Laying out your workout clothes in a place where you will see it right when you want to get active

Looking at your goals, how can you make the optimal choice the default or easy one?

2. Get Supportive Accountability

You can have goals you are super motivated for, and be really clear on your values, but guess what? Some goals are still really hard to stick to. For me, this is exercising in the morning. I love sleep and in the past I needed to get up around 5:30 am if I wanted to exercise before work. I’d much prefer to exercise at a different time if I had the choice, but at that time it wasn’t realistic given my lifestyle.

Enter, accountability.

About 20 of my friends and I made private Facebook group where for the past 4 years or so we have regularly posted to check in and stay accountable to exercise. I attribute my success in getting up in the morning to exercise consistently, for the first time in my life, to this group. There is something extremely compelling about knowing that your friends expect you to show up and this is enough to make the difference between hitting snooze and getting my tired self downstairs and doing a 30 minute exercise video.

3. Write Down and Share Your Goals

Did you know you are much more likely to achieve your goals if you write them out and share them with someone versus just think about them (Matthews, 2007)? If you haven’t already, put pen to paper by completing the free worksheet or just write them on random notebook paper. Doing yourself this favor makes you much more likely to achieve these goals than just reading and thinking about them.

4. Don’t Shoot for the Moon

James Clear and other writers have written about the importance of setting our habits such that we are gradually doing 1% more, versus large drastic shifts.

This is very different than the “shoot for the moon” and achieve success quickly results that most of us want to see. There is a reason that most before and after pictures of weight loss success stories show people “before” and then 21 days or 6 weeks after (depending on the absurdity of the diet ad of course, some are longer time periods). But we like to shock and wow people with our fast results, don’t we?

But let’s think about this. When was the last time you achieved a huge goal overnight? Have you ever found immediate or quick results in something truly important that lasted over the long-term? I know I can’t think of any examples from my life. In fact, all of the accomplishments I am most proud of were a result of gradual progress over time, most over many years.

5. Trust in the Compound Interest of Habits

If you are like me, or the vast majority of people I work with, you may have a hard time seeing the point of small changes. We are a results-focused society, particularly when it comes to weight loss and we struggle to be patient.

This is particularly true if you struggle with depression or anxiety, as this makes you more prone to all-or-nothing thinking. Even if you have never been significantly depressed or anxious, you can probably identify with this style of thinking at one point or another.

The reality is, how you show up consistently over time makes much more of a difference than anything else.

So focus on the habit shift and your behavior, not so much on the outcome (e.g., whether it’s health-related, financial success, or otherwise) and trust that over time, your consistent action will lead you to big results.

Putting it into Action

I hope you downloaded the free guide and will work through the above steps. If nothing else, pick 1-2 things you can change related to the above tips and write them down and share them with at least one person you trust.

Better yet, share them on here! Comment below or send me a message stating your goals and what you plan to work on moving forward. I would love to hear from you.

References

Beshears, J., Choi, J., Laibson, D., Madrian, B. (2009). The Importance of Default Options for Retirement Saving Outcomes: Evidence from the United States. In J. Brown, J. Liebman and D. A. Wise (Eds.), Social Security Policy in a Changing Environment (pp. 167 – 195). University of Chicago Press.

Hayes, S. (2016). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Relational Frame Theory, and the Third Wave of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies. Behavior Therapy, 47, 869-885.

Johnson, E. J., & Goldstein, D. (2003). Do defaults save lives? Science, 302, 1338-1339.

Matthews, G. (2007). The impact of commitment, accountability, and written goals on goal achievement. Paper presented at the 87^th Convention of the Western Psychological Association, Vancouver, B.C., Canada.

• See this link for a detailed summary of the research study: https://www.dominican.edu/sites/default/files/2020-02/gailmatthews-harvard-goals-researchsummary.pdf