Over the last 20 years I've given many people information on how to improve their health and the environment, running seminars and even one on one sessions, and I've come to the realisation that there are big gaps between what people want to do and what they actually do. So just over 10 years ago I started researching goal setting for healthy behavioural change. I realised that even after the best possible seminar and motivational session it was only the goal setters who actually carried through with the necessary changes. Without goals most of the information was wasted and in some cases extra information was even detrimental, as it made people feel quite overwhelmed. I now build in goal setting with all the groups I take, including high school kids, teachers, community groups and sporting and business teams. With my research students I've worked on programs such as Travel Smart, developed the program Living Smart and the latest, on which we're currently working, is Seniors Smart. And of course I use goal setting extensively in my own personal life.
Having goals is fundamental to human behaviour. It's not just for sports people and business people, it's for anyone who wants to improve their life. In fact goal setting begins in early childhood and stays with us for the rest of our lives. Setting and achieving goals is not just an important process, it is essential to our lives. It plays a major role in personality, motivation and health. Hence my focus on goal setting as a fundamental aspect of wellbeing. Our studies have shown that when you begin to succeed in achieving your goals (and they may be any goals, not specifically related to health) your health will begin to improve as there is a transference effect.
The research on the positive effects of goal setting is overwhelming. In a recent review, researchers who had been studying the effect of setting goals for the past 35 years found that goal setting increased performance on well over 100 tasks involving more than 40,000 participants, in at least 8 different countries, working in laboratory, simulation and field settings, in time spans from one minute to 25 years. They reported that the results are applicable not only to individuals, but to groups, organisational units and organisations. In effect the review found that goal setting is amongst the most valid and practical applications for motivation in psychology.
My own review of more than 600 peer review journals on goals and the writing of my book 'Goal Getting' with Terry Power, shows without doubt that having goals does work. They are an incredibly effective tool, whether you wish to improve your health and well being or family life, or your finances or sporting ability. The research shows that if you set your goals well, then you’ll be successful in achieving them. Behaviour modification programs which incorporate goal setting are significantly more effective and have more consistent results than any other type of intervention. In a program designed to increase dietary fibre consumption, those who set goals consumed 91 per cent more fibre than the people who didn’t set goals. Goal setting is probably the single most important factor in a successful diet or weight loss program. Will power is what you rely on if you have a wish that you have not made into a goal, and often only works till 3 pm the next day when you are tired, hungry and confront your first major challenge. Goals take you beyond the limits of your will power.
Goals don’t work for people mainly because they simply don’t set them well. In some cases they have literally never thought about it, so their goals are just a loose bunch of dreams or wishes, much like a wish list for Father Christmas. But even those people who have read a book or attended a course on goal setting don’t necessarily succeed because they have not been taught to set goals comprehensively and thoroughly enough. The most common reason people don’t succeed, is that they don’t write their goals down and they don’t work on them. Finally, goals don’t work in isolation from the rest of the universe and everything else you do, so you need to think beyond your goals and build in an additional battery of support. If your goals are worthwhile, and they should be, what other forms of cognitive behaviour therapy can you use to support your goals? For example, I have people tell me that their goals never work for them or that they have no imagination. Yes, I get people who really believe this. So they need additional techniques such as establishing a positive mental dialogue or Emotional Freedom Techniques to get them over their first barrier. Otherwise they won't even be in the race.
Goals work because they focus our thoughts, gives us the tools to do the job and motivate us to keep going. Goals are not just a single thought about what you want - they are a comprehensive and ongoing process. To set meaningful goals, which you'll want to achieve, I suggest you ask 6 basic questions.
- What do you really want (values based)
- When do you want it? (be precise and set a specific time frame to achieve your goals)
- How will you get it? (set down at least 10 smaller specific steps, these are the strategies and tasks)
- Why do you want it? ( get personal here, really get into your values and keeping adding to this list)
- Who will help you get there? (dead or alive who can support, motivate you, give you feedback)
- Where will you do it from? (find a place to inspire you, a supportive positive environment) and,
- Where is it taking you (always fit your goals into a long term vision)
I have seen many goal programs that don’t cover these questions in any depth, or not at all, and so don’t get the results. Similarly, if you answer each of these questions with a one-line response you'll get a one-line result. Take your time and expand on them and you will achieve the result you really want. If you feel creative, make them into pictures and shapes. The more resources of your mind you bring to setting your goals, the more powerful and real they'll become. If you don’t want to draw pictures, find some that are inspiring or express what you want, and cut them out.
The what gives you the direction and focus - just make sure it is the right focus. Have you ever seen a moth just ecstatic about finding its goal in life, the local light globe? For hours it will keep banging into the light globe until it is exhausted or dead. The moth really just needed to be directed outside where it could orient itself to the light of the moon, its true goal. Many of us are so busy, hitting our heads against the light globe. Always start your goal setting process by establishing your values. What is really important in your life? I suggest you start with health, family and relationships and the rest will follow. Even within these areas you'll need to work out where you really need to start.
Then write your goals and make sure they are:
- Precise
- Positive
- Present (for instance write “I am.......”.)
- Personal (they are yours)
- Purpose driven and consistent with your values
- Challenging
- Achievable (you need to be able not only to achieve the goal but you must also feel that you can)
- Small to big (make sure you include some big goals)
- Written simply (don’t complicate your goals by using complex or confusing language)
- Measurable; and
- Flexible. Always make your goals flexible as there are many of life’s circumstances that are out of your control. When one of these comes along readjust your goals and off you'll go again.
Now comes the real challenge, writing them down. It is easy to imagine our goals, even to talk about them but the real effort comes when we write them down. It’s well established that when setting goals, writing them down dramatically increases the probability of them being realised. The act of writing uses muscles and stimulates the release of chemicals in your body which cause thousands of extra connections in the brain to be formed. Writing stimulates different parts of our brain and every time you read what you’ve written more neural pathways are formed, reinforcing the idea and burning deeper it into your brain. If you repeatedly write something down, you’ll keep reinforcing it. In fact, if you use colours and pictures and get a bit creative, the reinforcement is amplified, increasing your chances of achievement.
In a study on goal setting for health and the environment, which I conducted with my PhD student Lucy Sheehy, we divided participants into three groups. One group received information in a seminar only, the second group received the same seminar and were also taught goal setting, the third group received the seminar, the goal setting workshop and wrote their goals down. The first group went backwards, performing about 6% worse in their behaviour, the second group improved their behaviour by around 5% and the third group, who had written their goals down, improved their behaviour by around 19%. The small effort of writing the goals down made a big difference. In the Smart Seniors program, those who wrote their goals down in class were not only more motivated and more excited about the program, but performed dramatically better on all the measures including memory, improved physical activity, diet and action to reduce their environmental impact. In a published study, in which a group of women were asked to self examine their breasts over the next month, the group who wrote down the where and when had nearly 100% compliance, compared to 53% in the group who did not write it down, but had equally good intentions to examine themselves.
Get the message - write it or risk not doing it. It only takes a few minutes but we are so busy we don’t do it. Remember the old adage: "The bluntest pencil records better than the sharpest mind."
A last word on goals: make them fun and pertinent. Start by developing your goals in areas that excite you and/or are fun. If you like reading develop your goals around reading, and you will find it will help you set goals in many other areas of your life! Or if you have a penchant for a particular sport or hobby, set your goals so that you integrate that interest area. One young boy I was working with wanted to be a jockey, so the first goal we set was that he was an excellent jockey and he was getting better. Out of that came the fact that it’s a physically demanding job, so we needed to set some health goals. He needed a good diet so he’d have the necessary energy and stamina, and so on. Goals should be interesting!
