“Come to the edge, He said.
They said: We are afraid.
Come to the edge, He said.
They came. He pushed them,
And they flew . . .”
~Guillaume Apollinaire – French poet

This is going to be a multi-post series of articles about planning.  I am going to show the exact techniques that I teach to my clients and I am going to illustrate these techniques by creating my own plan for getting back in shape.

In the last entry I shared and clarified the goal: “I will return to my optimal bodyweight before the end of 2009.” became “I will return to 195 pounds of bodyweight by the morning of December 31st, 2009.”

So the first step was to clarify the goal – to make sure that it was easy to understand and told my brain exactly what I wanted to achieve by what date.  (By the way, if there is some big goal that you really want to accomplish, you might consider taking it through this process with me.  I know that you will find it useful.)  So, now I have my goal and my deadline.  The next question that I am going to ask is:  Is it possible to achieve this, is it reasonable to achieve this, in the time that I have allowed?  I believe yes, just!

Let me explain.  I have 11 months to achieve this weight loss and I currently weigh around 330 pounds.  I intend to return to my ideal weight of 195 pounds which means that I must lose 135 pounds in 11 months.  Simple math tells me that equals 12.28 pounds per month or approximately 3.07 pounds per week.  Is this possible?  Yes it is.  From my past efforts at losing weight and my research, this is indeed possible.  Is it reasonable – probably not completely.  It is however exciting, and I will take the excitement over a more reasonable goal.

How about you?  Does your goal excite you?  Is it possible?  If it seems impossible to you, then move out the date or reduce the goal until you get a signal from your brain that you believe it can be done.  It is okay to be afraid, we will talk about what that means in this series, but you must at least believe that the goal is possible in the time that you have allowed.  If not, make a change in the quantity of the goal and the time allotted until you believe that it can be done.  It is okay if it is a stretch.  It is okay if it feels a little scary to write it down.  It is okay if you don’t know how you will achieve it yet.  It is okay if you have failed to achieve this same goal in the past.  We will deal with each of these things.

How about excitement?  Is this an exciting goal?  Make sure that it is very exciting to you and that it is your goal – not a goal that someone else has given you.  If you have been given a goal by someone else, then rewrite the goal until it deals with rewards directly related to you and it excites you!

For example, your boss might tell you: “You need to open 50 new accounts this year and they need to each buy an average of $4,000 dollars.”  This is actually a more clear goal than most bosses will actually give.  Still, it has nothing directly related to you in this goal.  There may be an implicit “or else”.  This might be: or else we will demote you.  It might be: or else we will fire you.  There will certainly be some negative consequences associated with a goal that you are given – an “or else”.  Rarely, there will be some positive consequences discussed.  For example: Do this and we will promote you or do this and we will give you a $10,000 bonus.  This may or may not be enough to excite you.

For me, I am not directly excited by money.  I am much more excited by thinking about the freedom and the experiences that the money will buy.  I don’t know what motives you most – what turns you on – but you do!  So rewrite any goal that you have, self created or given to you by another, until in positive terms, it talks about benefits that excite you.

What about my goal?  Does “I will return to 195 pounds of bodyweight by the morning of December 31st, 2009.” excite me?  Yes it does.  Does it clearly state why I am excited about this?  No.  It doesn’t.  Next time, I will show you how to create a vision to go along with the goal that will do this very thing.

To recap:

  1. Write down your goal
  2. Make sure your goal has a clear and easy to measure “What by When”
  3. Check for reasonableness or possibility – can this be done?
  4. If it can’t or feels impossible, the rewrite the goal, changing the amount or the time frame until you can believe it.
  5. Check for excitement.  Make sure that you are excited about this goal.
  6. If this a goal that was given to you by another – check for all of these same things.

Till next time… Jack

“Courage is being scared to death—but saddling up anyway.” ~John Wayne