“Would you tell me, please, which way to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to go,” said the Cat
“I don’t much care where…” said Alice
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat
LEWIS CARROLL – Alice in Wonderland
We have already dealt with that dreaded (for me anyway) concept of goal setting. To make this process easier, ask yourself why you have those specific goals?
There must be a reason why one person wants X and another wants Y!
Both X and Y are perfectly acceptable under the correct circumstances, but why differentiate between X and Y in the first place?
The only reasonable answer seems to be that either X or Y matters to the individual at that specific point in time and under those specific circumstances in that moment. The choice is dictated by the importance of the outcome.
Have you ever experienced the frustration of not achieving what you set out to achieve?
Look specifically at personal wellness goals – losing or gaining weight, smoking cessation, addiction issues, improving exercise patterns, managing stress better and all the other usual suspects!
Look back over the past few years and see where you started to implement changes, when the whole process fell apart and the old behaviour dominated again.
Now ask yourself what was the motivation for the change?
What was it in the expected outcome, the goal, that MATTERED to you.
Was this motivation actually important to YOU or not – did you try to give up smoking because your parent or spouse told you to, or because you saw a grizzly picture on a cigarette pack?
How more powerful would the motivation have been if the goal was actually important to YOU- if you were planing to hike in the Himalayas, or surf in Polynesia for example, the behaviour pattern change would be linked to your passion, to what matters to you!
Take a moment to decide what matters to you.
How are your current goals linked to this?
How can you use what matters to you to change and improve where you choose?
