Setting Goals and Creating Lasting Change

Posted on February 27, 2014 by Kimberly Putman, One of Thousands of Executive Coaches on Noomii.

If you are interested in making a change, this article is for you. There are a number of scientifically proven strategies that will help you navigate the process of change that you seek.

The first thing you want to address when setting out to make a change is to evaluate whether the change you seek is in alignment with your core values. For example, if you want to lose weight, make sure you can attach that concept to a personal value you find important (I want to be healthy so that I can keep up with my children and live a full life).

The second thing that you want to do is state your goal as a positive. A positive goal is more motivating and is typically easier to measure in terms of success. Additionally, making sure your goal meets the S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound) test is often a large part of the success formula for goal attainment.

Third, analyze the goal to see if you can make it a behavior goal instead of an outcome goal. The idea is that if you work on changing your behavior in relation to a goal your success in making a change is more likely. Why is that? When you are working on a behavior goal, there are no outside variables controlling your success; you control your success because you control your behavior. Also, a behavior goal typically has specific actions related to it.

Examples:

Outcome Goal (tend to be very general and do not have specific actions attached):

“I want to lose five pounds.”

Behavior or Performance Goal (very specific and generally action oriented):

“I want to consistently make healthy and appropriate food choices in relation to my current state of fitness.”

Once you have set your behavior goal, the next step you want to take to increase your chances of making successful change is to make a list of pros and cons regarding the change. Seeing on paper that there are more pros than cons to any given goal increases your chance of success. Additionally, being aware of the cons is important in future steps you will make in the change process.

Examples:

Pros
1. Consistently making healthy and appropriate food choices will help me to have more energy.
2. Consistently making healthy and appropriate food choices will improve my focus and concentration.
3. Consistently making healthy and appropriate food choices will help me to lose weight, and feel better while I am exercising.
4. Consistently making healthy and appropriate food choices will improve my overall health.

Cons
1. It can be challenging to resist the temptations of foods that are not healthy, and I don’t want to feel deprived.
2. If I slip up and have a lot of unhealthy food, I am concerned about feeling like a failure.
3. My extended family gatherings are centered around unhealthy meals, and I don’t want to feel left out.

Once you feel confident that you have more pros than cons regarding your desired behavioral change goal, it is important that you educate yourself about the change you want to make.

Example:

1. Find out how to create a healthy diet
2. Read up on portion control, portion sizes and macronutrient needs
3. Figure out how much you need to consume to be healthy

Next, give some thought to your personal belief that you are capable of making the change you desire. Try practicing the phrase “I am willing to…” and finish the sentence with information about the desired change you are planning to make.

Find a visual cue – a way of seeing yourself on the path of your change process. Making both a private and public commitment to your behavioral change resolution is your next step. By making a commitment to yourself as well as someone important to you, you create a sense of accountability and support around your change goal.

The next few strategies for the change process are about continuing to set yourself up for success in change endeavor. For example, countering techniques are those things that you put in place to give you alternatives to your current behavior.

For example, at a family gathering when everyone is snacking on desserts, chips, dips and high calorie drinks, find a favorite family member. Suggest that the two of you play a game or go for a walk or do another activity you both can enjoy.

The next idea is about controlling your environment to reduce temptations that may sabotage your success. Some tactics you could use are eating before going to the family gathering or bringing a healthy snack that you can share with everyone.

Once you have set yourself up with a number of these techniques, consider designing a reward system that will give you specific rewards for accomplishing your small measurable parts of your goal. You might plan to buy yourself something, schedule a pampering service for yourself or just plan to take some time off to do an activity you really enjoy. Having something to look forward to is very motivating during the process of change.

A support system that you can turn to for focus, motivation, cheerleading, etc. during your change process is often crucial in terms of making successful change. The support system might be a friend that is encouraging you on your path, an expert in the field that directly works with the change you are trying to make or might even be your spiritual leader. Have someone to talk to about your “wins” and “slips”.

The next part of the change process I encourage my clients to consider is concept of “immunity to change”. This idea was put forth by Drs. Kegan and Lahey at Harvard University. They proposed that often our biggest hurdle in the process of change is what they term “competing commitments” that you hold regarding your desire to change.

These doctors set out to study why people have the best of intentions to change but often fail despite their best efforts. Kegan and Lahey came up with the idea that all of us that have been unsuccessful making changes we really want to make are fighting our own natural “hidden” competing commitments.

When I work with clients on the process of change, we always work together through this concept of immunity to change using a worksheet designed to help clients resolve these competing commitments. Once the worksheet is complete, we take the “discoveries” of competing commitments and challenge the assumptions behind what keeps the clients from making real change.

Basically, the challenge of assumptions is a small experiment or action the client and I design. The client agrees to do the designed experiment or action in order to test the assumption about the possible change that is keeping the client from making progress towards her goal.

Each time I meet with a client to work on creating behavioral change, we discuss successes and challenges. The important concept to remember during the process and progress of change is that slip-ups happen.

I endeavor to help clients accept that slipping up is not about relapsing behaviors but about recycling through the process of change. In the book Changing for Good, the picture of an upward spiral is attached to the visualization of the process of change. The authors suggests that although there may be some slight slips backwards at times, an upward spiral is the best picture of what it looks like to make positive and real change.

If you are ready to set a behavioral goal, I strongly encourage you to the give the process and strategies discussed in this article. My passion is working with clients that are ready to make change happen. If you are ready to implement the process of change or know someone that could benefit from working with an expert on the process of change, I would love to discuss the coaching process and see if I am a good fit as a coach.