Should I Change My Goal?
When it comes to goal setting (or anything, really), there’s no one right way to do things. Regardless of your goal - weight loss, fitness, a road race time, an income goal, a target for a promotion, a book deal, marriage, whatever - there are multiple ways to meet it according to whatever expert you’re looking to.
The diehards who tell you to set your goal and never change it except in the case of blood or fire (and sometimes not even then…).
There are those you suggest setting tiered goals - kind of like a gold/silver/bronze model - where you aim for your “reasonable” goal target, then a “stretch” target, and then a “dream scenario”.
And still others who think a goal is really written in pencil - it’s meant to point you in a direction but if it’s not working for you, or you don’t think you’ll make it, change it as needed to keep you from getting disappointed and discouraged.
The question of how to set your goal is never really the issue - you pick a goal and go for it. Where we run into trouble is when we aren’t making progress towards that goal as fast as we’d like to….That’s when we start to wonder:
Is this ever going to work?
Is this even possible for me?
Why did X person do this so much faster than me?
Should I quit?
Is this going to take forever?
If you’ve ever set a goal you’ve seen this film before, but let’s look at a specific example. Weight loss goals are common, and often tied to something like an event (an upcoming wedding, a vacation, a reunion, etc). “I want to lose 10 lbs. before that event in 2 months” - and this is a common way we set a goal, right? I have something I want to change or achieve, by this date, so I have this much time to make it happen.
So a person will start doing the things they think will help them meet this goal; in this case, that may be eat less, work out more, drink more water, etc etc. And a few weeks go by and this person may step on the scale, see they’ve only lost a pound or two, and start to think, “Shit, it’s not working….I’m not going to meet my goal of losing10 lbs by that event.” So this is where we start to think something along the lines of: I either need to change my actions to get there faster, or I need to change my goal and make it easier to achieve.
While this thought isn’t entirely wrong, it’s missing a big ol’ option behind door #3 which is where most of our success lies: “I could stay the course and believe this will work”. Notice how our brains aren’t such a big fan of that one…..because that one requires building the belief that we’re right when we don’t see the evidence that that’s true (evidence like hitting a weight loss goal in a certain time frame when the scale isn’t moving). Our brains like certainty. And leaps of faith are far from certain.
So what’s a goal-setter to do? How do you know when to stay the course and keep believing it will all work out, when to make a change to your approach, and when to change the goal altogether? The answer is to do a little bit of all of the above.
In order to meet you goal, you have to believe it’s possible, and that it’s possible for you. So working on your belief is key, no matter what else you choose to do. If you’re struggling to believe it’s possible for you (“I’ve never lost this much weight before”…. “I’m too old to lose weight now my body has changed too much”…. “I can’t possibly lose this weight in time now….”) just start by working on believing it’s POSSIBLE. Has someone, somewhere, ever in human history done this? Yes? OK, then we know it’s possible. Now you start working on the part where you don’t think it’s possible for you.
What’s the story you’re telling yourself here? Why do you think it’s possible for other humans, just not you? Who told you that it wasn’t possible? Is that a person you want to believe? Have they done this? Do they know for a fact it’s not possible?
Just keep asking yourself questions about your belief - the more questions the better, because what you’re doing is showing your brain that it’s possible to see these thoughts another way. It’s possible that you’re belief, “This won’t work for me” is just an old hanger-on thought from the past, and not one that you need to hold on to….
While you’re working on your belief, you can then decide - OK, do I want to take more/new/different actions? Do I want to change my approach? Or do I want to keep doing what I’m doing? Make any choice you want here, just like your reason. If you choose to take different actions, do so for a reason you like (“I’m curious to see if I can do it; I wonder what would happen if; I think this would feel better to do things this way….”) vs. a reason you don’t (“I’m freaking out! This isn’t working! I need to do this NOW!”),
And finally, on the idea of changing your goal altogether - sure, you can do that. But why would you? What’s so wrong with creating a goal (like in this example, of losing 10 lbs by a certain event) and not meeting it? Nothing. Except that you might make it mean something about yourself that isn’t cool…..Whether you meet your goal or not is not really the issue here. The issue is, what do you make it mean if you don’t meet it? And that - the meaning behind not hitting a goal - is 100% up to you to choose.
You can choose to make it mean that this will never work for you. Or you can choose to make it mean this will work, just not in the time you want, and that’s OK.
You can choose to make it mean you can’t achieve anything. Or you can choose to look at the progress you have made so far as see that as evidence that you can achieve whatever you want.
You can choose to make it mean your goal was unrealistic. Or you can choose to think that “unrealistic” is just an idea, that your goal is totally realistic, and that maybe you just need to change your approach to get there if you want to keep trying.
You will always succeed at whatever goal you set as long as you choose to never quit until you get there. So if you like your goal, if you want it, don’t change it. There’s no reason to. Because even if you don’t meet it, you don’t have to make that mean anything other than, “I’m just not there yet but I will be”.
And you will.