STRUGGLING WITH A GOAL? PERHAPS, YOU NEED ANOTHER ONE!
Now is a critical time to evaluate your progress to ensure that you are heading in the right direction for 2022.
How are you getting on with your daily actions?
If some of what you started in the last few weeks has fallen by the wayside, there is no need to beat yourself up with guilt or shame. Having set a number of different goals or actions to complete each day or week, it is likely that there is one that you are making much more progress on than the others.
You may be more motivated and energised by this objective, or it is easier to take action on so therefore, progress is more rewarding. A reward state in the brain obviously feels much better than an anxious and stressed one so is it any wonder that you (your brain) will direct you to what will create the neurochemistry associated with pleasure, rather than pain? Well, some may prefer pain but let’s not go there…
Quite deliberately, many of my coaching clients work on two or three goals concurrently and each adventure will progress at different speeds. The success of consistent action on one goal can help spur them on with the more difficult. Contrast this with someone working on just the one goal. Should this get derailed, it may be extremely difficult to get back on track. It’s much harder to pick yourself up and keep going – it’s easier to give up. Knowing that you are making stellar progress with another activity contributes to resilience and helps regain motivation.
What can you learn about how you are approaching a particular task that you can apply to something that you are finding more difficult? Experience tells me that you may be viewing the more challenging goal in a different way.
Here’s a simple example: I asked a client “what are the insights with your success with keeping active for your health and fitness that can be applied to this specific project at work?” (that will take months to complete). They replied that they had made it more accessible by committing to small chunks of time e.g., twenty minutes of exercise three times a week. They had even booked the time in their calendar. They also enlisted the help of a friend to go walking with at the weekend.
So, we applied the learning and action (which they were already proving to themselves that they could do successfully in one area of their life) to another goal on which they were stuck.
I asked: how could you perceive the project as easy instead? What could you do that will make it easier? How could you break down the goal into short bursts? Who could support you or hold you accountable?
Whilst your priorities are revealed by your behaviour, sometimes a little help and unfamiliar perspective can make the big, challenging outcome (usually the one that will really make a positive impact in your life!) much more achievable so that it can finally take centre stage – right where it belongs.