Lynne S. Gots, Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist
Get SMARTer: Set Goals You Can Live With
By Lynne Gots, posted on December 28th, 2011.
While I was driving into work this morning, I heard an ad on the radio for a weight-loss product “guaranteed to help you achieve your New Year’s resolution to lost 20 pounds or more.” It made me cringe.
If you read my last post about setting SMART goals, you may be wondering what’s wrong with resolving to lose a specific amount of weight. After all, a numerical target meets most, if not all, the criteria I talked about: it’s specific, measurable, and timely; and it might even be achievable and realistic, as long as you’re using medically established weight ranges rather than your own ideal of what you’d like to weigh. Even so, it doesn’t pass muster with me.
Call me picky. But I don’t like evaluating success by outcome alone. When you’re focusing only on the end result, you can lose sight of your progress along the way and miss out on valuable opportunities to feel good about the steps you’re taking to chip away at bad habits.
Consider one of my patients, who’d lost thirty pounds in five months. His pants actually fell down in the supermarket when he bent over to pull a box of cereal off a bottom shelf. Yet he persisted in thinking his dramatic weight loss was “no big deal” because he still had twenty more pounds to go.
Rather than measuring your progress by pounds lost, use behavior change as your yardstick instead. Here are just a few examples of SMART goals you could strive for if you want to lose weight:
- Eat fruit instead of ice cream for dessert three times a week.
- Prepare a meatless meal once a week.
- Sit down at the table to eat.
- Plan to eat at regular intervals with three structured meals and one or two snacks.
- Add one serving of vegetables to lunch and dinner.
Did you notice I didn’t use any “don’ts” in my goals? When we’re trying to eliminate counterproductive behaviors, we often create rigid rules for ourselves. The internal wagging finger usually has the unintended effect of propelling us right into a petulant rebellion. Word your goals in terms of positive changes you can make rather than negative behaviors to avoid.
Get the idea? Record your eating habits for a week and use the information you’ve gathered to identify your personal problem areas. Be creative and have fun. The possibilities are endless. And remember, what’s important is the journey, not the destination.
Tags: behavior change, setting goals, weight loss
Posted in Behavior Change, Goals, Motivation, Techniques |
Get SMART: 5 Steps for Setting Goals You Can Achieve
By Lynne Gots, posted on December 26th, 2011.
I saw two magazines side by side in the checkout aisle of the supermarket today with the same headline: “Organize Your Life! ” New Year’s Day is right around the corner. Six days away, to be exact. The resolutions are beckoning.
If you’re serious about organizing your life or making any other changes come January 1, you’d better get started right now. It’s time to build the foundation for success. The number one reason people fail to change unwanted behavior is not setting goals they can achieve.
Here are 5 guidelines to follow for successful change. They’re easy to remember if you think SMART. Make sure your goals are:
1) Specific. Break your goals down into observable behaviors.
2) Measurable. You should be able to determine the outcome quantitatively. Be scientific.
3) Achievable. Take small steps.
4) Realistic. Be sure your long-term goal isn’t too rigid and unsustainable.
5) Timely. Create daily and weekly changes to shoot for.
Let’s put the Organize Your Life goal to the SMART test. Is it specific? No, it’s too vague. Is it measurable? No, you can’t measure organization without first defining it. Is it achievable? No, you can’t achieve it if you haven’t defined it. Is it realistic? No, it’s too all-or-nothing. Is it timely? No, you can’t set a timeline for completing goals if you can’t measure them.
If organizing your life seems like an attractive way to wipe the slate clean and start the new year out fresh, you’ll be dooming yourself to failure before you even start unless you make the Organize Your Life goal SMARTer. Let’s take a stab at it.
1) The concept of organization has many components: managing your time efficiently, keeping track of bills, getting rid of clutter, and meeting deadlines. Decide on one or two specific aspects of organization you want to tackle. Don’t get caught in the trap of aiming for perfection. If you want to organize a messy house, say, start with a small, specific goal: I will clean out the kitchen junk drawer.
2) List all the steps you’ll need to take to accomplish the goal. Cleaning out the junk drawer may mean throwing out a collection of rubber bands and twist ties, sorting through old warrantees to file or dispose of, collecting loose change and putting it in your wallet, wiping out crumbs, and making a trip to Target for plastic bins to keep everything tidy. You can measure each step and check it off after you’ve completed it.
3) An achievable goal isn’t overly ambitious. Rein in your perfectionistic aspirations and start small. You’ll need to silence the inner voice that’s telling you, “What good will cleaning the kitchen junk drawer do when the whole house is a mess?” Set yourself up for success, not failure.
4) Deciding to clean the kitchen junk drawer is realistic. It won’t discourage you, and you’ll see results quickly enough to motivate you for the next task. You can also maintain the change by planning to spend five minutes once a month (specific, measurable, achievable and timely!) tossing out the odds and ends you’re bound to accumulate again.
5) As you can see, specific and realistic goals lend themselves to timeliness. You can decide whether to take an hour, a day, or a week to finish cleaning the drawer. But don’t drag it out any longer, or you’ll lose steam.
After you’ve accomplished a small piece of the larger goal, give yourself a pat on the back. Then move on to the next step. If you’re making sure to stay SMART, you’ll have lots of opportunities to feel good about your progress even if you haven’t yet reached the endpoint.
I’ve decided one of my goals for the new year is to write three blog posts a week. Is this SMART? Even though it’s very specific and measureable, I’m not sure if it’s achievable, realistic, or timely. So I need to revise it. I’ll plan to write one post a week for the month of January. If that works, then I can aim for two posts in February. At that point, I’ll reassess my original goal and see if I still want to produce three posts a week.
Try creating your own SMART goals, and we’ll work on them together. I’ll be posting more tips in the coming weeks. Maybe even more than once a week! Oops. I’m getting ahead of myself.
Tags: behavior change, goal-setting
Posted in Behavior Change, Goals, Techniques |
Deadlines
By Lynne Gots, posted on December 10th, 2011.
I’m setting my stopwatch. I plan to write this post in 30 minutes or less.
Why the rush? This week I’ve heard from more than a few stressed out students, my own kids included, who’ve been in the throes of end-of-semester panic. Classes ended yesterday for GW and Georgetown undergrads, and the law students are already in the middle of exams. I’ve been dispensing advice about minimizing distractions, organizing time, and setting reasonable goals to deal with overwhelming volumes of work. So I thought it only fair to test it out myself.
Of course, a blog post doesn’t come close to a 30-page academic paper or a 90-page outline for a Constitutional Law final. But I still have to focus my attention, quiet the internal critic, resist the urge to get a snack, and get the words down.
Only 15 minutes left. (It took me 15 minutes to do just this much? How will I ever finish? This isn’t very interesting. I’m not sure what else I have to say. Why did I decide to do this? What a stupid idea!) I’m noticing some tension in my neck and chest. The words aren’t flowing very quickly. My mind is going blank!
(OK, take a deep breath. Close your eyes and take three calming breaths. You can type with your eyes closed.)
That’s better. Still don’t know exactly where I’m going with this. (I should have planned it beforehand. It would have been easier with a plan.)
The urge to stop right now is getting stronger. But fair is fair. I’ll keep going until the 30 minutes are up.
I’ve learned something from this experiment. Telling yourself you have to get something done in just 30 or 60 minutes, or even two hours, isn’t the best way to approach a deadline. Better to leave yourself some leeway because the extra pressure of the clock raises your anxiety and clouds your thinking. Keep that in mind for the next time.
But if you’re already in a bind and have no choice, set the clock for a half hour and push through. Ignore the inner monologue and keep going. Then take a break. That’s what I’m going to do now. Because my 30 minutes are up.
Full disclosure: I did go back and make two-minutes’ worth of edits. (Not too bad! This may not be my most brilliant piece of writing, but I’m OK with it.)
Another important takeaway lesson: every effort doesn’t require perfection. Sometimes you just have to get the job done. So just do it.
Tags: organization, time management
Posted in Behavior Change, Techniques |
