GET IN SHAPE. EAT HEALTHIER. LIVE MORE.
PLACE YOUR FOCUS ON YOUR BEHAVIORS
For most of my life, I’ve been driven by the end result—outcomes over process.
Outcome goals form the foundation of most of our New Year’s Resolutions. We want to lose 15 pounds (not one pound every month) or work out five times a week for a year (not five times this week) or increase our max deadlift—by 50 pounds, instead of five.
Lofty goals are great—as long as everything goes as planned.
However, that’s where the problem lies. Life doesn’t typically go as planned. Outside forces always intervene. Two weeks ago, my little one was sick and my husband was out of town. I told myself, “This week hasn’t gone as planned,” about 10 times—a day. It wasn’t a bad week, it just didn’t go as I expected it to go.
We rarely control outcomes. I don’t control when my kid gets sick. I can’t control if I wake up three times during the night. I can’t control the scale or guarantee I will make five Group Fitness classes this week. What if I hit traffic and miss the only class I could make that day? That isn’t failure. It’s accepting that I cannot control the world around me.
If we don’t set mile markers for success along our journeys, we will often feel like we’re failing for every moment we’ve not reached our goal. This is where our mindset must shift.
Behavior goals represent a particular set of actions or tasks that you commit to every day.
If your outcome goal is to lose 15 pounds, you can build in behaviors into your life that allow you to get the end result while taking consistent steps in the right direction. Start by eating slowly during mealtimes. Eating slowly correlates to eating less food, which will likely lead to weight loss. If my outcome goal is to sleep eight hours each night, maybe I create a calming bedtime routine and put my phone away by 8 p.m. I can control when I put my phone up at night, and this routine will help me sleep better.
Because behavior goals represent actions that we commit to daily or weekly, we will see a lot more success than with solely outcome goals. We can celebrate our successes more frequently, which leads to better feedback, more consistency, and a feeling of continuous forward momentum.
So, as you think about goals for your health and your life, start to focus on what you can control. We’ve got a great PDF here that you can download to help you shift from outcome to behavior goals. If you want to sit down with someone to talk through a plan of achieving your goals, Feel free to book a free goal session with one of our team. We’d be happy to chat with you more about how you can have a happier and healthier 2020!
facebookinstagram