Goal Setting

[New Every Day]

I've been reviewing my 2006 goals and quite frankly, I failed miserably. Granted, I overreached and was also dealing with a 6-month severe depression.

Now, I am looking at goals for 2007. Many of them are the same, however I'm paring them down in order to get more reachable goals. I figured I'd rather have goals that are a little bit lower, but achieved than higher goals and fail at them.

Anyhow, I realized today that most of my goals for this year were "consequence" goals. For example, "I want to lose XXX pounds". I'm wondering if I should be changing my goals to more "action" goals, for example, "I will workout 20 times during the month of December".

It seems to me that the action goals are better than the consequence goals because you are more able to make sure that they happen. For example, I can make sure that I workout 20 times during the month. It will lead to losing weight, but doesn't guarantee it.

Has anyone else thought about this? What are your thoughts on these two different types of goals? What kind of goals do you set and why?

Thanks All,
Ed

[Mycroft]

How are you writing your goals?

"I want to lose XXX pounds." is not a goal.

"My goal is to lose xxx pounds by December 31 and I will accomplish this by changing my diet to a more healthy diet and by exercising and getting my cardio above X at least 20 days out of each month."

Then you would need to track your progress toward your goal and adjust your actions on a regular basis. Yes? If a goal is important to you, then you need to keep that goal at the forefront of your mind. You need to affirm that goal at least twice a day.

[Chris]

Hi Ed,

You raise an interesting point regarding outcome goals versus "action" goals. Personally I tend to set "outcome" goals as it is the end result that is most important, not how you get there (and there are usually a number of different ways to get there).

Say your goal is to loose weight, if you state your goal as "I want to weigh XX pounds on 31st December 2006" then that defines your desired outcome very clearly, which I think is important. However, there are a number of different ways you could get to that weight. Increasing excercise is one, but reducing caloric intake is another and you could balance these two to varying degrees. One option is that you exercise twice a week for 30 minutes and reduce your daily calorie intake quite significantly. Another option would be to exercise everyday for an hour and not reduce the calories as much. What I'm getting at is that there is never just one way to achieve a particular goal.

Say in your case you set your goal as an "action" goal which is to work out 20 times in December. If you then fail to work out 20 times (say you mange 12) but your diet is exceptional and you still loose the desired amount of weight.... technically you have failed to reach the specific "action" goal that you set, even though you have actually achieved the end result that you were after.

I think it is probably still important to state your goals clearly as desired "outcomes", as part of the process of setting goals actually stimulates your subconscious to start guiding you towards achieving that goal. Mentally I think you will be more closely focused on achieving your desired outcome (through any means) more than if you were just focused on a bunch of "behaviours".

That said, I think it could be useful to set "behaviour" type goals in addition to your "outcome" goals, such as "visit the gym three times a week throughout december", or "avoid fast food on Mondays-Fridays for a month" as these give you very specific targets to aim for on a day to day basis. Maybe you call these "sub-goals" or just "targets". So state your desired outcome very clearly as your main goal, and then list 2 or 3 "sub-goals" which maybe specific behaviours/habits/targets that you need to achieve in order to meet your main goal.

So the short answer is: I think both are useful!


PS I think Mycroft makes a good point about being very specific about your goals when you write them down, including a date by which you want to have achieved each goal.

[ludlow]

I may be in a minority in finding highly specific goals with highly specific deadlines to be counterproductive, though I do think Steve writes about this somewhere and expresses this same point of view.

A possible third option might be to turn the action into an outcome, eg, "My goal is to have installed the habit of working out 20 times per month by [Month] 2007". The advantages of this include:

a) Even if you only make it 10 times in the first month, you can feel a strong sense of progress and direction

b) You benefit from a clearly expressed outcome

c) You're expressing the intention to keep working out even after your weight is closer to what you want. Which most people would want and/or need to do, in order to maintain fitness.

d) It's somewhat gentler as a goal and it sounds like you might benefit from that. This might not be relevant, I don't know. It's just a bit of a hobby horse of mine - lots of people (including on this forum, and including me) could do with being reminded not to beat themselves up too much, I think.

[ahimel]

New:

What's true is, the best goal-setting method is the one that causes you to improve. I happen to be almost the exact opposite of you: I choose outcome-based goals that I don't think I have a chance of reaching. For example, I set a goal to sell my computer-repair company for $1,000,000 by the end of 2006. It was a ridiculous goal, and I knew that when I started. But that set me free to work on the goal, without ever stopping to worry about whether I could achieve it. I knew I couldn't, so there was no point in worrying about it.

But that doesn't work for you; we're diffrent people. So try something else. If you set an action-based goal, it's possible that it won't create the outcome you want (losing weight), and it's possible that you won't even achieve your goal (exercising 20 times per month). But you'll almost certainly be better off by the end of 2006 than if you hadn't set the goal. So go for it, and see how it works out.

If that helps, but doesn't solve the problem, try a blended goal like Mycroft recomends. There are lots of options; see what works for you.

[Andy]

For most goals I break down each and make notes of it in different ways. So similar to Mycroft's example, I'd have it like this:

Overall goal: lose weight

time-based goal: would like to lose xx pounds by [date]

action goal: begin a diet (figure out the specifics) on [date]. begin a workout program(figure out specifics) on [date].
After 2? weeks, see how much weight has been lost, adjust diet/workouts accordingly.


The key, like Mycroft said, is to review how everything is going at regular intervals, and be free to change the specifics such that your overall goal still gets achieved.

I find it hard to follow specifics strictly when I start off with any goal, instead I prefer to ease into it by making lots of adjustments as I go on, otherwise I'd tend to abandon the whole thing.

[Erik Mazzone]

I think that either type of goal can be effective; what matters is that you acknowledge to yourself how you want your life to change and you choose the authentic goal that moves you in that direction.

For example, if what you really want (your authentic goal) is to lose weight, then the "results" goal of losing x pounds is the way to go. You could set a proxy "action" goal (say, exercising 20 times per month, for example), and achieve that goal without achieving your authentic goal (losing x pounds). I've proved that to myself over and over again.

While you will have achieved a goal you set, your pride and satisfaction in the accomplishment are likely to be diminished because you didn't achieve your (unstated) authentic goal. So, it's possible that the failure to set an authentic goal up front will doom a later accomplishment fall a little flat.

If, by contrast, what you really want is to become a regular exerciser, then the "action" goal of exercising 20 times per month is the authentic goal. When you achieve the goal in this instance (whether or not you have lost x pounds), your pride and satisfaction should be full, because you have achieved what you actually set out to.

Good luck!

[ChampionsChoice]

Originally Posted by New Every Day

Anyhow, I realized today that most of my goals for this year were "consequence" goals. For example, "I want to lose XXX pounds". I'm wondering if I should be changing my goals to more "action" goals, for example, "I will workout 20 times during the month of December".

It seems to me that the action goals are better than the consequence goals because you are more able to make sure that they happen. For example, I can make sure that I workout 20 times during the month. It will lead to losing weight, but doesn't guarantee it.


Ed

Looks like your on the right track. Something I have been experimenting with is making a list of goals, and writing them down literally every day. Reading and reviewing every day has really shown to be bringing these as a reality in my experience.

Good luck!

[Milo Riano]

You're goal of losing xxx pounds is right. What is lacking is your detailed plan on how to go about it.

You are still in the conceptualization stage where you have identified the goal of losing xxx pounds. The next step is to create a plan where you identify the approach and steps on how to go about it. You should identify a checkpoint meter for your plan and see if you are able to meet these goals.

Anyways, I have written about the project management lifecycle which is about managing projects but I definitely use them for my own projects like weight loss, buying a new set of computers, house renovation, etc. It's a bit technical (as in the excerpt) but somehow you can relate it to yourself which is something I do and accomplish all the time. The key is to be able to have a measureable set of metrics to prove that you can attain your goals and check it from there. You need not write it everyday or have a daily checkpoint as it is a waste of time unless you suffer from a "short memory loss" syndrome.

In an excerpt: What is project management?

Project management is the skill of managing and applying resources, tools and processes to produce results within a set of requirements, time and constraints.