.svg){kind=icon}
Set your goals wisely
Spring brings new life. More sun, warmth, and longer days give us energy and the desire to take action. We start cleaning up, and not just at home. With the first days of spring, many people decide to make positive changes in their lives. They want to break bad habits, eat healthier, exercise, learn languages, or improve personal relationships – the list goes on. Gyms and swimming pools fill up again with people who have decided to get off the couch. Just like at the beginning of the year, nutritionists, coaches, trainers, and psychotherapists are in high demand. Some of those who failed to implement their New Year's resolutions are trying again. However, after just a few weeks, the group of enthusiasts thins out significantly, and many people feel like they have failed to achieve their goals once again…
Why does this happen? Many of us make mistakes at the very stage of setting goals: there are too many resolutions, and keeping them is unrealistic given the person's situation and the resources they have access to. For example, if someone has plenty of free time and money, plus a team of helpers (nutritionists, psychologists, personal trainers), it will be easier for them to lose weight or tone their body than for someone who not only cannot afford professional, tailored advice but is simply exhausted after a full day spent at work or doing household chores. For such a person, even finding the time for seemingly small actions like going for a walk or cooking a healthy dinner instead of fast food will require much greater determination. Therefore, they deserve even more appreciation.
What can you do to increase your chances of achieving your goal? Break it down into smaller steps, preferably ones that allow you to see results in a shorter time, provided, of course, that you put in enough effort. Every step in the right direction will help you build a habit of success – if you learn to notice and reward even small progress.
Don't compare yourself to others!
Each of us is unique. We have different personalities, bodies, predispositions, skills, beliefs, and experiences. We are in different personal, professional, and financial situations. Take this into account when setting your goals!
It is worth being inspired by people who have achieved what we desire and to use good practices. However, before you start blaming yourself for not achieving what others have, consider the situation that person was in and what helped them. Think about what you can use and who you can ask for support. The same result requires completely different effort from different people.
Do not compare yourself to other people, but to where you were a week or a year ago. Ambition and the desire to catch up with the best only help in some situations. More often, such comparisons are a source of low self-esteem and a feeling of being inferior or weak. As a result, it causes even greater blocks, demotivation, and stagnation. Thinking, "since I haven't achieved what others have, I am pathetic," makes it increasingly difficult to motivate yourself to take any action at all. Even those that we actually have a chance to achieve.
A toxic mixture of guilt and shame
Psychologists have long proven that the biggest barriers to achieving goals, breaking habits, or implementing good routines lie within ourselves! A mixture of guilt and shame is particularly destructive. If you blame yourself inadequately when you don't reach a goal, if your "inner critic" throws a string of painful epithets at you, if you are ashamed that you only took some of the planned actions, then instead of motivating yourself, you are cementing a habit of failure! On one hand, you start to see yourself as a loser, and on the other, you generate fear of action because you associate it with failure and stress. If you constantly blame yourself for failures or for making too little progress, you drain your own energy and self-belief. And without that, it is difficult for anyone to mobilize themselves to act…
As a result, it becomes even harder for you to initiate the desired change, and you become even more afraid of not meeting expectations (especially your own!). You make fewer attempts to reach your goals. You give up faster – because "why bother if it won't work anyway?"… Your belief in the point of taking action and your self-esteem become even lower. This is how you cement a "habit of failure"…
Celebrate even small successes
Few of us are lucky enough to receive enough motivating feedback at work and at home. We must, therefore, provide it for ourselves to strengthen our desire to act and consistently stick to our chosen path.
Learn to notice your progress and celebrate even small achievements. This adds self-motivation and a sense of agency. It encourages consistency and putting effort into the next steps.
Reward yourself not only for results but also for the effort put in! Remember that not everything depends on you. It often happens that even though we gave it our all, the results are below expectations. If you don't appreciate your effort, it will become increasingly difficult for you to achieve your goals.
I often hear from my coaching clients that they cannot enjoy their successes, while at the same time they lynch themselves for every failure, or even for achievements that are too small. In the long run, such an approach takes away joy and self-worth. It drives you into a life of constant fear of failure. It makes you feel too weak or not good enough. It's time to change that!
Building self-worth and the habit of self-appreciation is just as crucial to successfully achieving your goals as self-control, conscientiousness, determination, or choosing methods that suit your specific situation and personality.
There are hundreds of inspiring books on the market offering advice on how to change habits and achieve goals. I particularly recommend two: "The Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg and "The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It" by psychologist Kelly McGonigal.
