FOR ATHLETES…AND REALLY FOR EVERYONE ELSE AS WELL GETTING STARTED…AGAIN

2015 CHALLENGE STILL IN PROGRESS
SCORE SO FAR:
NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS MADE: 3
NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS KEPT: 0

Let me take a wild guess: you made a number of New Year’s resolutions into which you put some serious thought. You were extremely pumped and committed to diligently following your new daily lifestyle changes. You were feeling excited, imagining how good you were going to feel after having accomplished your goals. Now, here we are, the year is almost over and you haven’t followed through with your goals to incorporate positive changes into your life, and you are feeling pretty discouraged due to the fact that you “blew it” when it came to sticking to some (or any) of your plans. Your feelings of frustration and dejection are certainly understandable, but perhaps the following little factoids may make you feel a bit better:

• EVERYONE feels the same way you do when they fail at something that is important to them. The world does not contain that many losers, so you must be mistaken for thinking that of yourself.
• The truth is that virtually every goal, as long as it is a realistic one, can be achieved with the proper goal-setting.

The key to successfully achieving any goals, not just New Year’s resolutions, is to recognize that you more than likely have been trying, with dismal long-term results, to achieve your ultimate goals for some time now. You have therefore formed conditioned emotional response patterns regarding your lack of success that will not make future attempts at achieving your goals any easier. Your confidence is so low that you would even bet against yourself if you were in Las Vegas. However, if you follow the steps below, you may be able to create a new, more successful game plan that will help you breeze through your previous failures. The scientific research and evidence on the effects of techniques similar to the ones described below is overwhelmingly positive. I am betting that you too will surprise yourself with the success you will experience by incorporating this strategy:

1. USE THE RELATIVE SCALE VS. THE ABSOLUTE SCALE TO MEASURE PROGRESS

It is critically important that you break down your Ultimate Goal into several mini-goals, or milestones. The Ultimate Goal is your Finish Line. Your Relative Goals are the partial “baby steps”that, when put together, connect to attain your Ultimate Goal. Make a list of your mini-goals and begin with the first baby step. Continue to move to the next baby step, and so on, until you reach your Ultimate Goal. It sounds simple, and it could be! To illustrate, let’s say you are 40 pounds overweight due to an inactive lifestyle and extremely poor eating habits. You are fed up with the way you look and you are also worried about the long- term effects of these habits on your health. You decide that you are finally going to get serious about this. Your Ultimate Goal is to lose 40 pounds and maintain a healthy lifestyle of eating and physical activity. Your first challenge, i.e. Relative Goal, could be the elimination or replacement of one or two items from your usual food intake (such as replacing soft drinks with water at all meals) or making a salad instead of French Fries. You could even start a workout program at the gym. After a week or two, when you have become a bit more comfortable with these changes, you will be ready to confront the next challenge, which could be increasing your exercise routine and making another healthy substitution to your diet. At regular intervals, you add another, more challenging baby step, until you eventually arrive at your Ultimate Goal and…MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

2. REWARD YOURSELF FOR EACH MINI-GOAL SUCCESSFULLY MET

Nobody I know would work at his or her job for six months before receiving a pay cheque. Quite simply, we all require some sort of reward, encouragement and reinforcement within a reasonable time frame of our efforts in order to sustain a healthy rate of performance and motivation, essential ingredients of any recipe for success. A very effective way to keep your motivation up throughout your efforts is to consider each successfully achieved Baby Step as a major step towards your Ultimate Goal, and a significant accomplishment. It is essential that you figure a way to “pay yourself” in some way for each accomplishment throughout the entire process. Scientific studies have proven that a reward system for desired, targeted behaviors, implemented correctly, produces incredibly positive results.

Make a contract with yourself to reward yourself with something(s) that you would enjoy. It does not have to be extravagant; it just has to be something that you would appreciate having or doing. Do not underestimate the power of promising yourself a dinner at your favorite restaurant for cleaning out the garage. Scientific studies repeatedly demonstrate how powerful an influence positive reinforcement is on motivating one to work through his/her challenges. Remember: the more mini-goals you create and achieve means more rewards, which means the more fun for you!

3. KEEP TALKING TO YOURSELF

As alluded to earlier, we all have lists of goals or objectives that we have yet to successfully achieve. It is very important to remember to constantly give yourself positive mini-pep talks while you are attempting a challenge. It is critically important to give yourself supportive, positive statements such as, “good job”, “keep it up”, you can do it”, etc. The more often you encourage yourself, the more motivated you will become to keep pressing forward. Let’s say your Ultimate Goal is to return to your previously regular schedule of visits to the gym and eating healthily. So, in the first days of this project, in the morning, every hour or so, you repeat this script to yourself:

• I really want to get back into shape
• I felt so much better when I was in my routine; it felt great
• I have to push myself to exercise at lunch time (or any pre-determined time)
• I know how great I’m going to feel by doing this
• I’m going to do this
• It’s going to get easier as I keep doing this so just HANG ON!!

There have been countless studies revealing that athletes that employ self-talking as part of their goal-setting and over all mental training perform better than those in the same sport who do not employ any programmed mental fitness exercises. As you experience success with each of your baby steps, so too will your self confidence improve. You can then modify your script to be a better fit to where you are in your journey toward your Ultimate Goal. You can revise your script to read something like:

• I can do this!
• Look what I’ve done so far by following the program
• I’m on the way and I’m closer to my goal than before I started
• If I continue, it is only logical that I will continue to succeed
• Imagine how I’m going to feel after I get to the next level

Setting realistic goals and plotting a map using mini-goals and strategies to achieve them are not reserved for athletes only. You can apply the same principles to most day-to-day situations in which you are struggling. The common denominators in both sport and daily living are a desire to overcome a challenging obstacle, a realistic game plan, and the ability to consistently pump yourself up with confidence-boosting self-statements. As you continue with whatever the challenge, you can add to your script phrases like, “Hey, good job, you’re on Day 4; now…. keep the streak going!” It will give you much needed motivation and good energy to fight the negative statements that invariably creep into your head. KEEP FIGHTING THROUGH EACH SUCCESSIVE MINI-GOAL! Your confidence will build in exponential proportions and you will have a whole lot of reasons to be exceptionally proud of yourself!

GOOD LUCK, AND GO GET ‘EM!

If you would like more information contact Howard at howardschwartz@appliedlearningcenter.com