Mental Moment-Learn How to Set Effective Goals for Today

Posted August 29, 2013

I’ve talked a lot about goal setting but today is yet a different conversation. Because my clients are different and not everything works the same with all clients I’ve develop creative news ways to set goals.

A client came to see me this morning and although he’d gotten away from the numbers on the scale for awhile, the number is back and it’s present everyday. Long story short, he gets up every single morning wishing to be 190 (he’s at 225) and at the end of the day unconsciously realizing that he didn’t hit the mark (190) he eats. The first thing in the morning he is setting himself up for failure and it continues all day long everyday. Each day he (unconsciously) expects to reach 190 and everyday he doesn’t, he’s failed so why not continue failing by eating what he wants.

My client feels like he has the tools and uses many of them but because he starts his day off setting himself up for failure so the day goes. That and the fact is, eating right and exercising are huge goals for one day and for someone trying to make change. What do they mean? Because they are too huge for interpretation, he has gone back to his failure cycle as described above. We go back to what we do know.

Goal setting helps to break these huge things down, it motivates because we see ourselves reaching our goals and that success builds confidence. Here’s what we did:

We came up with three themes: for this client it was physical, food and I recommended the third one be something around self-care or fun. I’ve done this with other clients and three seems pretty doable for most people. He came up with 1-goal for tomorrow in each of the themes. Each goal was specific and realistic.

We decided that tomorrow morning he will get up and say that he is going to be 224 by the end of the week and that he has three goals for the day to help him get there. Saturday he’ll get up and tell himself that by the end of the week he is going to be 224 and set three more specific and realistic goals, etc. He will try to do that for the next week. His long term goal next week is to have lost 1-pound. His short term goals are set everyday and they are what gets him there.

There are messages woven into this blog that are applicable to everything we set out to do.

Happy weeks end!

Dr. Michelle

Photo credit: www.flickr.com

confidence, goal setting, goals, long term goals, motivation, realistic, short term goals, specific

Dr. Michelle Cleere

Dr. Michelle Cleere helps top athletes, musicians, and executives in competitive fields unlock the power of the mind and create the mental toughness to be the best. She gives her clients the mental tools to deal with performance anxiety, gain more confidence, and build resilience. Check out her credentials.