Succeeding at what you want doesn’t happen by chance; You need high(er) goals and small(er) steps
You need high(er) goals and small(er) steps; The power of dreaming big and committing to small steps.
It is very hard (for not saying impossible) to succeed at something without first defining your success criteria; that is: determining the measure for you to say: “I did it.” To define those measures of success, there (at least) 3 things you need:
- What exactly is that point of success?
- How are you going to measure/know that you got there?
- How are you going to re-assess what is going on and adjust or change your end goal?
The need for small steps
Great outcomes are sexy, small steps…naaahh not really.
You are more likely to succeed at a challenging “almost out of reach” goal than to a flat and relatively ‘easy one’. We need to dream big, achievement research shows, and we need the preparation for many small steps to sustain the effort in the long run. Dreaming big seems to be easier, and the latter frequently forgot.
As in a sandwich, there’s no discussion about what you will choose: the bread or the filling!? You need both. For achievement, we need both a sexy outcome goal, driving motivation and small bite-size steps to allow persistence in the long run.
Self Deception.
When setting goals, there is always (always) a part of Self Deception.
Imagine when setting a goal. we need to imagine how things will be in the future, assume (invent for the most part) the actions that will drive what results, how motivated we’ll be to do or behave in specific ways in 3 months from now…. It is inevitable, before starting any endeavor, we don’t know many things. Just to make things worst, we don’t know what we don’t know.
Process not Event
Setting a goal is the first step of a long process called achieving your goals. Contrary to what seems, it is not a step done at the begging and then kept there for further reference. It is no much more than the checklist to go and Hike Mt Everest. It’s a list, a piece of paper with lots of good intentions.
The goal of setting a goal is to kick off with the 1st step from the process of goal achievement.
Describing why I want something makes the goal-setting better. However, that is a Goal set to not benefit our brain’s working process.
A goal has the power of showing ourselves the person we would like to be, the thought we would like to think about ourselves, the things we’d like to see created in the world.
The power of setting a goal is to show us what we would like to be and where we are right now: It’s creating a psychological GAP with a direction towards it.
That very gap is essential to create traction and motivation. At the same time, it is telling me, “You are not what you want yet”
Only by setting great goals, we fail miserably.
Accumulated research indicates there is a substantial gap between people’s goal’s INTENTIONS and their goals ACHIEVEMENT. This happens because creating a goal intention does not prepare people enough for dealing with the challenges of starting, sustaining, and adjusting the events and behaviors throughout trying to achieve a goal.
You are not alone; Conscious and Subconscious
It seems that we tend to forget that our mind has a least two headquarters: The Conscious and the Subconscious. Simplifying this analysis, you need to keep in mind: About 80 or more of the brain activity happens unconsciously to us.
Behavior = |Conscious| + |Subconscious Goals|
Subconscious has a big advantage vs. conscious mind in the decision taken process: He goes first: is the one that first checks and decides BEFORE your brilliant incredible prefrontal cortex even gets to sit at the negotiation table.
Every time we engage in dreaming, envisioning, and planning an outstanding, ambitious, sexy goal, our subconscious could already take half or more of the decision by himself.
Building the Bridge
There seem to be two bridges to build and go through. One is the Now and Future I want to be/do/or have. We close that gap with the right actions and behaviors thought a period of time. That is what we call: “doing the project.”
The second bridge to build is the alignment between our two CEOs, Conscious and Subconscious. When there is no alignment, we find ourselves cleaning up the kitchen or sorting out old CDs when we need to sit to study for the final exam, prepare the super-important presentation for capital approval, or get an appointment for a doctor to visit.
Insight, Will power and goal setting alone is usually not enough… to overrule our subconscious.
The real truth about GOAL intentions:
Goal intentions are self-defined and self-given instructions to act or behave in specific ways, with the intent to obtain a particular outcome or behavior.
Goal intention looks like this:
I will get up at 600 Mon, Wed, and Fri and go run for 30min for 12 weeks to lose 5 Lbs and look better.
Willing involved to form a goal intention has the most significant correlation with goal attainment. However, there is a GAP between Intention and Action that accounts almost entirely for people to act and not take action. Goal intentions have a significant association with future behavior. I’ll make an effort because I want to Look and Feel Great in 3 months.
But…. what about our value for relaxing, sleeping, staying comfortable in bed, having a great breakfast? Our subconscious friend will claim his part at 6:00 am when the alarm clock goes off.
Implementation Intentions. How to do Implementation intentions:
Implementation intentions are a form of planning, shown through research to impact more than 70%, yes 70% in effective goal achievement. They enhance people’s ability to initiate, maintain, disengage from, and undertake further goal striving.
If — then is a way of implementation intention that connects opportunities to act as go or stop with cognitive or behavioral responses previously planned to positively impact the goal objective.
They describe both the action of behavior to implement and the situational or spatial condition to using them. Those cues could be related to good opportunities or negative opportunities.
Forming an If-Then implementation Intention removes the control of the behavior from the self to the situation. It requires that when the occasion is encountered, the person follows the action swiftly Without requiring the Conspicuous intent.