By Kristi Gay, freelance writer
January is a time of starting the new year fresh which many times includes setting new goals for yourself. Many times these goals are abandoned by March or April and people are left feeling like they are failures. Recently, I’ve been working with a professional coach who has been helping with many things, including goal setting, which I’ll share what I’ve learned with you today!
The first “aha!” moment for me was differentiating between “Goals of Desperation” vs. “Goals of Inspiration”. The desperation goals are taxing on your mind because they’re a reaction to an internal crisis or external pressure. You’re only motivated short-term because of a sense of urgency, which also creates high cortisol levels as you feel these goals are a burden. An example of this is dieting to lose weight before an event or vacation.
Goals of inspiration are different in that they are created because you love the PROCESS more than the end result. This makes the work toward these goals rewarding and seems at times, effortless. The long-term vision is so exciting it constantly remains your top priority. They’re also SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely). These are goals that you don’t have to have, you WANT to have. For example, “I will save $20 in a jar every week for six months and spend this savings of nearly $500 on a luxury hotel and musical theater event with my daughter at the end of June.” Each week you will be excited and looking forward to something rather than feeling the work to achieving your goal is making your life worse in the meantime.
Another tool my coach walked me through was the “ERRCK” quadrant exercise. Start by listing your personal needs emotionally. Some examples of personal needs are togetherness, belonging, connection, clarity, fun, joy, self-care, bravery, accomplishment, self-growth, exporation, discovery, positivity, consideration, love, or any other needs that come to mind. Then read back through that list and select one of top needs with high importance to you. Next draw a grid with four quadrants on a piece of paper, and title them: Eliminate, Raise, Reduce, Create, and Keep (in the center of the grid). In each of the quadrants, brainstorm things that would help increase whatever that personal need was. My example for myself of the personal need very important to me is JOY. My quadrant on what I need to Eliminate (to increase my joy) has activities or people that suck the joy out and that I want to remove. The Raise quadrant lists activities or people to priorities in importance (to increase my joy). Reduce lists things I can’t necessarily get rid of but can reduce (to increase my joy). The Create quadrant lists of new habits (to increase my joy), and Keep are activities or people I love that you want to continue as is.
This option is more about changing small habits for a great personal feeling to increase, and is another way of setting “goals” that are different from the traditional type of New Year's Resolutions. As with anything to improve yourself, consistency is way more important than perfection. So if you try something and it’s not perfect, try again tomorrow. Self-improvement in small bits can change your life for the better. As Tony Robbins is quoted, “If you are not growing, you are dying.” The time is now!
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