Question regarding setting my goals correctly.

[point of no return]

Hi all,
I have a few questions to ask in relation to setting goals.
I realized that in the past my goals were set up incorrectly, they were unrealistic and there were too many of them. I have been failing at following my goals for the past 10 years. My explanation is: too many goals – got obviously overwhelmed and gave up, unrealistic – got de-motivated after not seeing the result, and on top of that a total lack of self discipline and patience, those are my domineering personal traits. So as you can see with this deadly combination of things no one would have achieved their goals.
It seems logical to me now to just concentrate on improving self discipline and patience (maybe add 2-3 more things maximum) in this upcoming 2012 year. I genuinely tell you guys that self discipline and patience are my weakest points by far and I feel that they are crucial in succeeding in everything else in life. It is like a foundation of a house, if it is not solid enough the house will eventually fall. That is how I see it.
My idea is to start this new year with the goal of improving my self-discipline and patience, plus add 2-3 more realistic things (in category of health, career and intelligence) to have maybe a total of 5 goals instead of 20 like the last time. And solely focus on these 5 all year long. What do you think about my plan?
And also I would like to ask one more thing. I`ve read on so many Internet sites that goals need to be specific and measurable (part of SMART goals system). How do you measure self discipline and patience because you cannot really measure it like sales figures for example or say pass an exam. How do you measure self discipline and patience to know that I have succeeded?
Thanks in advance.

[taylor]

Have you considered doing a 30 day trial method?

That's where you only have 1 new habit to keep for 30 days. Next, month you can add a new habit, but you can only add 1 new habit per 30 day period.

This might teach you discipline (because you're adding a new habit a month) and patience (because you can only add one a month). It's also more realistic for you since there's only 1 new habit to worry about.

[Swifthawk]

Self-discipline and patience are not virtues that you can single out and work on in a vacuum. You need a context to test these virtues in. That is how you will train them.

Try to have a goal which will involve both of these things. Something like cooking your own meals, for a whole month, like the post above suggested.

This activity tests both by forcing you discipline a habit of eating out and forcing your patience by having to slow your day down to account for that cooking.

This is just an example, but the point is you can't train both of those things without a context to train them in.

[scorpio1980]

You can't really gauge self discipline and patience themselves.

You can create goals that will train your discipline and patience though.

I would recommend for discipline making a goal of something like waking up at a specific time everyday even when you are tired. Forcing yourself to push through the negative self talk, and the tiredness. This will take major dicipline.

As for patience nothing trains it better than meditation. Start with a simple 5 minutes per day, and move up to something bigger throughout the year. It takes patience to sit and just clear your mind for long stretches. Meditation has the added bonus of increasing focus, discipline, and bringing us closer to who we truly are deep down.

[jbsmith]

Make them...

1. Specific - exactly what you want to achieve and by when
2. Future Tense - state them as if they were already realized
3. Emotional meaning - make sure that you have (or create) strong emotional ties to the end result of achieving your goals...this is where the discipline, motivation and committment come from
4. Re-visit every day - review your goals (in future tense) and visualize BOTH you having achieved your goals and what would happen if you did NOT achieve your goals (the pain pleasure thing)

These 4 principles have served us very well in our goal setting and have helped countless others we have helped with on improving/starting their goal setting.

Jeff

[point of no return]

Thanks fellas.

“the point is you can't train both of those things without a context to train them in.”
“You can create goals that will train your discipline and patience though.”

I understand. I am going to create (have created a little bit already) like a daily routine to follow so it will be exercising my discipline as well as patience by simply sticking to this routine. Also will make up different challenges that will test my discipline, e.g. putting a delicious doughnut on my desk while Im working and do not touch it and so forth.
However as I’d like to make self-discipline/ patience a specific time-bound goal I would like to be able to measure it (part of SMART goal system). I have read Steve Pavlinas article on discipline where he talks about Objectifying Subjective Goals. Here are his words:

“What if you need to set subjective goals, such as improving your own level of self-discipline? How do you phrase such goals in binary terms? To solve this problem, I use a rating scale of 1 to 10. For instance, if you want to improve your self-discipline, ask yourself on a scale of 1 to 10, how do you rate your current level of self-discipline? Then set a goal to achieve a certain specific rating by a certain date. This allows you to measure your progress and know with a high degree of certainty whether or not you've actually achieved your goal.”

So after reading this I quite liked the idea of a rating scale of 1 to 10 however, I guess I need to be very detailed and precise in what every number means to me (to be able to know if I reached this number) at the end of the year. What do you think about this system guys? Have you ever tried it?
Thanks in advance.

[billionairekid]

I'd like to ask how dedicated you are to personal growth? I ask because there are much faster ways to improving self discipline and your ability to follow through. Yes, 30 day trials can you give you a lot of experience and they have the power to transform your life. And I'd say that learning NLP can give you access to any internal resource you desire and you can learn how to connect with your mind through language to learn any skill you desire.

Skills and states. They're really the only thing that matters. Imagine an actor. What must they master? The ability to enter states so they can perform. There they've made accessing states a skill. And with that skill they earn lots and lots of money. Imagine a business man. He's learned how to make and sell a product or provide a service. And the more skilled he is, the more money he makes. I wonder what states help him be a great business man. He probably want's to be centered and clear. He also must be confident and decisive. The business world moves quickly.

There is going to be a time when mastering your internal states and being able to learn skills quickly and efficiently is normal. Get ahead of the curve.

[Swifthawk]

Originally Posted by point of no return

So after reading this I quite liked the idea of a rating scale of 1 to 10 however, I guess I need to be very detailed and precise in what every number means to me (to be able to know if I reached this number) at the end of the year. What do you think about this system guys? Have you ever tried it?
Thanks in advance.

I think I would have a hard time using this 1-10 scale in terms of self-discipline as a broad category. Discipline can be applied to any thing you want to accomplish.

For instance, my self-discipline in lifting weights has been trained over 9 years of lifting and as such is very developed, whereas something like keeping my room clean is not very developed. I've never been very disciplined at it.

Just try not to be too broad with your scale. Name an area you want to develop and then try to quantify your current level. Could be reading books, exercising, following a diet, anything.

Find those activities you find most important for a life well-lived and try to develop discipline within those specific activities. If you fail in other areas, at least let them be one's that don't matter much.

My room gets dirty, but it hasn't made me a bad person yet.

[Rimuel]

I propose this to evaluate the program for improving your patience/discipline:

1. Find one task that you would like to improve your patience on.
2. Time yourself doing the task 5-10 times.
3. Using a spreadsheet of some sort (e.g. Excel or Calc), calculate the sample mean and standard deviation.

4. Create some kind of program or use some kind of technique to improve your patience. The most obvious is using brute force to force yourself to do it. Another one is to find very good reasons you should improve your patience. Another one is to find the significance of improving your patience on a task. You can also implement visualization, law of attraction etc.
5. Make sure you have a deadline for the program.

6. At the end of the program, time yourself doing the task again 5-10 times.
7. Calculate mean and standard deviation, as in step 3.

8. Use the significance t-test. I suggest using 5% level of significance. If it is significant at 5%, you can conclude that the program worked and your patience has increased as a result of it.