How Positive Replacement and Behavior Micro-Goals Helped Me Enjoy The Journey Instead Of Getting Frustrated If I Haven’t Yet Reached The Destination.
I lost 32lbs in 2 months.
I’m excited about the accomplishment.
I credit the weight loss to a shift in perspective.
Two Ideas That Helped Me Lose 32lbs In 2 Months
1. Add Things.
Instead of looking at needing to take things away from my life, like sweets and carbs, I started to add things to my life:
-add more vegetables and proteins
-add more water
-add more walking
-add more reading
Adding things became a positive way to leave less room for the things I should be avoiding like desserts, soda, sitting, watching tv or scrolling.
By adding things, I had more frequent feelings of accomplishment rather than a steady feeling of denying myself treats.
In the past when I’ve tried to eat healthy, I had the perspective of needing to deny myself of things, as a result, I couldn’t wait to get to my target weight and then start eating all the items I had been denying myself all along. I had in my head that when I get to my target weight, I will be done.
However, switching to this idea of adding things, has become a positive rewarding experience. It becomes a mind shift to focus on the good I am doing for myself rather than what I’m taking away from myself.
2. Don’t Make a Weight Loss Goal. Make Completing Daily Behaviors The Goal.
Instead of focusing on an end result as the goal, I made multiple goals centered around daily positive behaviors.
In the case of my weight loss, I didn’t make a target weight the goal.
I didn’t make the goal anything to do with pounds!
The goals I set were limited to what I could control daily.
My goals were:
Walk 3 times a day.
Drink 10 glasses of water a day.
Eat veggies and proteins for 3 meals a day.
Read 5 nights a week.
Every time I accomplished another walk, ate another meal comprised of veggies and protein, another night reading, and another day of drinking lots of water, I felt success. I was able to build confidence in accomplishing my behavior goals even before seeing the results of the weight I lost.
I was able to celebrate and enjoy the process.
It was better for me to focus on behaviors as the goals because I had complete control over accomplishing the behaviors.
Whereas, if I had made the goal to lose 20lbs in 30 days, what would have happened if I my body didn’t responded BIG enough to the changes in my diet and exercise to lose those 20lbs? Would I be proud of myself for consistent positive behaviors for a whole month or would I be disappointed that I didn’t hit the 20lb loss number?
OR
If my goal was to lose those 20lbs and I lost 20lbs, would I just stop all the good behaviors that got me there because I met my goal?
For me, I didn’t want either of those scenarios.
I didn’t want to risk being disappointed with my final number.
I wanted to be proud of the changes I made.
I also didn’t want to hit my number only to quit and gain it all back.
I needed my goals to be focused on changing behaviors.
I needed weight loss to be just a by-product or added benefit.
As a result, there were some days I was successful at completing my goals, and there were other days I didn’t fully achieve my goals.
However, for two whole months, I systematically improved multiple healthy behaviors in my life.
As a result, I lost 32lbs in 2 months.
I’m excited about that result. That’s a neat stat. But what’s more important is that I’ve changed behaviors in my life. I took control over those behaviors, accomplished them and received added benefits.
But my journey isn’t done.
Since then, for the past 3 months, I haven’t lost anything.
My weight has remained the same.
I’m stalled.
When you hit a stall in your progress, what do you do to find your next gear?
How do you build your plan when you’re at the crossroads of knowing, “What got you here, won’t get you there.”
I know what got me here won’t get me there.
I need to pivot, add something else new.
I believe I know what I need to add next…weights at the gym.
I used to love working out at the gym but years of not taking the extra time away from my kids has squashed the drive to get up and out the door to pump that iron.
I’m stuck with knowing what I should do, but not having the drive or commitment to actually do it.
Do you go through moments of knowing what you need to do, but not finding the drive to do it?
What helps you get over the hump?
In this particular example, what can I do to get my mind over the hump and get to the gym?
This blog isn’t just about weight loss.
This is about the journey we go through as we work at any goal.
Consider sales behaviors for instance,
Prospecting is sometimes painful.
We want a sale, but we don’t necessarily want to prospect.
BUT, prospecting feeds the wolf.
The more prospects you have, the more conversations you have, the more sales opportunities you have, the more sales decisions you get to, the more closed wins you have.
So if I set a goal to be, “Max out my Linkedin invites every week with people in targeted roles to grow my network.” I will increase my prospects.
If I then set a goal to, “Post 3-6 times a week on Linkedin.” I will increase awareness in my prospect pool about the problems I can solve for them.
If I then set a goal to, “Send a warm introduction message to all of my new connections.” I will increase the chances of turning a prospect into a lead.
Each of these goals can be directly controlled. I either do them or I don’t. If I do them, I begin to increase my opportunities for conversations.
The more conversations I have with leads, the more sales conversations I can have.
The more sales conversations I have, the more sales decisions I will experience.
The more sales decisions I experience, the more closed-won deals I can celebrate.
You can’t hope for more closed-won deals without setting behavior goals.
If you want to have more closed-won deals, you must have specific and measurable goals about the behaviors you will accomplish to increase prospecting.
Many sales people know this, so what holds them back from doing it?
What are the mental blocks that get in the way of accomplishing the behavior goal of prospecting?
G. I. Joe used to tell us at the end of every public service announcement, “Now you know. And knowing is half the battle.”
We may know what we need to do, but that’s only half the battle. The other half is in the doing.
So how do we win that other half of the battle?
By setting behavior goals around the DOING!
What behavior goals will you be setting?
How will you get yourself over a hump of knowing what to do but not following through with it?
Empowering Kindness 