This week’s blog is about how to make your goals a success. You’re two weeks into January – I hope you’re doing well with your resolutions and your goals. You may have found you’ve already had a little bit of a wobble. However, whatever stage you’re at, I want to talk about how you can make your goals a success.
The fact that we’ve just turned from 2018 to 2019, isn’t going to be enough to get you through those stages of change – which I’m going to talk about in a moment. You cannot rely on the fact that it’s a new year with a “new year, new you” concept. You really need to be clear on your intent – the calendar change isn’t enough.
Ask yourself, What is your intent? What do you really want to get done?
I urge you to really pick apart at that goal. What I very often see people do, is come to us and they say I really want to lose weight. I’m two stone overweight and want it gone, it makes me feel horrible. I’m under energised and I’m not sleeping well – I want to get that two stone off. Most people would say, “Well of course, two stone, I completely get that. Let’s look at how we’re going to do it.”
Even though our business isn’t really about weight loss, it’s just one of the things that we help people with. I would always try and pick around that and find out what really sits behind that goal, because very often it is more than just the weight loss. What it really could be about is repressed trauma, it may be very low self-esteem. It could be any number of things – a deep anxiety about their future health, for example. But it’s harder for people to admit that and a weight loss goal is something that we all accept – especially in January. So ask yourself the why, why, why, why, why do I really want this, until you get to the truth of what you want to achieve. Stare that in the face and get comfortable with it.
Then you can consider why now is the time? It’s not because it’s January, because I can tell you that won’t last. Why is now the time that you’re going to be successful and what do you need to set up around you? One of my helpful suggestions is to think about the five stages of change:
Pre-contemplation phase – We have pre-contemplation as the first stage – you think you might want to do something. Start to entertain the idea, but you’re nowhere ready to do the piece that I’ve just talked about.
Contemplation phase – This is a little bit more serious. If I’m going to do this, what might need to happen? How am I to feel? How much time do I need to allocated to it? That’s a really important phase.
Preparation/Research phase – The preparation or the research phase is very much about looking into who might help you, what do you need to know, where might you need to go, what kind of support’s available, who else has done it really well and look at case studies and testimonials. That’s another really important phase and that’s the phase you might be in here in January.
Action phase – That’s getting in touch with a coach. It’s doing an online quiz. It’s looking into what gyms you can join; what classes are available. That’s where you’re, as the name suggests, taking action. By this point, you’ve made your mind up of what you’re going to do. What your intent is and why now is the time you’re going to do it.
Maintenance phase – The final phase comes in. It’s called maintenance. That’s where you’ve achieved what you want to achieve and now, you’re just maintaining that goal.
Those are five stages of change. Think about where you are in those stages of change, and don’t try and jump ahead too quickly. If you’re in the pre-contemplation or contemplation stage, great. Think about getting to the research stage but don’t think about getting to action yet, because you need to follow those steps. It’s been a well proven time tested, tried and true model, that they are the stages we go through.
Follow all of the stages and get clear on your intent, pick apart what your real goal is, not the one you think is acceptable to people or yourself. Get clear on why now is the time to make a change and understand where you are in those stages of change, and you’ll very likely to be successful. Of course, we wish you all the best.
If you need a bit of support and advice on where you are with your health, then why not take our Health IQ Test
The test will take you through 24 very simple questions. Yes, no, maybe answers, and at the end of the test you’ll get a free 39 page report on our six signals; sleep, mental health, energy, body composition, digestion and fitness, which will give you some indicators, and some tips for you to improve on the areas where you score lowest.