How To Set Goals (And Actually Stick To Them)

Happy new year!!! Can you believe that we're already a few days into the new year?

With the new year comes the season of resolutions and lofty goals, which come spring, have often been forgotten or ended in failure because they were so radical to begin with. We all make goals at some point or another, whether they or health related, personal, or career related, which I want to share with you a goal-setting technique that has had a huge impact on my own life.

If-Then Planning

I first heard about if-then planning a month or so ago from one of my health coaching mentors, Elizabeth Rider. She suggested a book called 9 Things Successful People Do Differently by Heidi Grant Halverson, which as the name suggests, provides lots of insight into how to live a prosperous, successful life. Here's how it works: instead of having some broad goal in your mind about what you will (or won't) do, you actually format your goal in the way that our very brains function - in "if-then" statements. These statements are structured like this: "if X happens, then I will do Y". For example, "If it is Sunday I will do my grocery shopping for the week", or "If it's Monday, Wednesday or Friday at 6pm I will go to yoga/the gym/a walk". Just about any goal can be broken down into this format.

If you're at all familiar with computer programming this might sound familiar to you. The concept brought me right back to my days in University where I studied computer programming as part of my degree health information science. If-then statements are the cornerstone of computer programming. It's no surprise that our brains work the very same way.

Here's how I put it to use:

For me, when I recently started working with a peer coach, one of the goals I set for myself was to read more. Specifically, to finish a book I'd been reading for quite some time. It dawned on me one day not long after discovering if-then planning that if I don't make the time to read, and reach my goal of finishing my current book, it will never happen on it's own. That's when I came up with one of my most powerful plans to date:

If it's 9pm, I will shut my computer down and read my book.

The concept of structuring goals in such a specific manner couldn't have come at a better time. Up until that point I had been putting in close to 13 hour days in front of my computer, studying and working to get caught up with schoolwork while also designing my new health coaching website (more on that in another post!). I was staring at my screen until right before bedtime, when I would attempt to unplug and fall right asleep - much easier said than done.

Since I have put my new goal into action, I have found myself making the time to read more, and as a bonus, I'm able to unwind before bed, fall asleep quicker and have deeper, more restful sleeps! Of course there are nights where it's not possible to shut down at 9pm and read (nights out like New Years Eve are a good example), so I make sure not to be too strict, or too hard on my self when it doesn't happen. The beauty of this newfound goal setting technique, however, is that now when 9pm hits, my brain is programmed to remember to turn off my screen, and pick up my book.

I hope this approach will work for you as well as it's working for me. Comment below to share your if-then plans - I'd love to hear your goals!