Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: episode is going to be a slightly longer one, but
Speaker 1: rather than interviewing someone else as I do usually once
Speaker 1: a week, I am going to be talking about goals
Speaker 1: and how to set them and how to structure their
Speaker 1: pursuit so they actually happen. I know a lot of
Speaker 1: people set goals around this time of year, often framed
Speaker 1: as New Year's resolutions. There is something about the fresh
Speaker 1: start energy of a new year that makes people think
Speaker 1: they can do new and exciting things. However, I know
Speaker 1: there is also a reasonable amount of cynicism about New
Speaker 1: Year's resolutions. I read a statistics somewhere that one percent
Speaker 1: of them fail. Now I don't know if that is
Speaker 1: true or not, probably because sometimes these goals are so
Speaker 1: vague that I am not sure you'd even know if
Speaker 1: someone had succeeded. What does it mean to get in
Speaker 1: shape or to eat more helpfully? What would it mean
Speaker 1: to be in control of your finances or to stop procrastinating,
Speaker 1: or any of the other resolutions like that. In any case,
Speaker 1: I know a fair number of people set out to
Speaker 1: do things and then feel like they haven't succeeded at
Speaker 1: doing what they set out to do. This can be frustrating,
Speaker 1: and in a worst case scenario, can lead to a
Speaker 1: feeling like life is what it is and it is
Speaker 1: not even worth trying to change things. But I think
Speaker 1: goals can be incredibly motivating, and I also think it
Speaker 1: is often possible to shape life in a schedule to
Speaker 1: make goals happen. To do that. Ye that, though, we
Speaker 1: need to be careful about how we set our goals,
Speaker 1: both in how we choose these goals and in how
Speaker 1: we structure these goals in order to make success possible.
Speaker 1: This episode is going to be about ways to think
Speaker 1: through these issues so that your goals stand a good
Speaker 1: chance of actually happening. So the first thing to think
Speaker 1: about is whether your goal is something that you actually
Speaker 1: want to do. Now, perhaps this sounds like a silly question,
Speaker 1: because if you are considering something as a goal, then
Speaker 1: clearly you do want to do it, right, But I
Speaker 1: don't think this is necessarily true. People set goals for
Speaker 1: all sorts of reasons. Maybe they sound good at least
Speaker 1: in theory. Maybe other people are telling you that it
Speaker 1: should be a goal for you. Maybe it is in
Speaker 1: the abstract, something that you would like to do. I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe eventually, but it is not as big a priority
Speaker 1: as other things in your life, perhaps right now. So
Speaker 1: here is a way to figure out if you are
Speaker 1: motivated to do something or not, particularly something which might
Speaker 1: involve a habit or putting something regularly into your life,
Speaker 1: or changing your daily schedule in some way. Ask yourself this,
Speaker 1: would I do this on vacation? That is, would I
Speaker 1: continue this habit or would I still be pursuing this
Speaker 1: goal while on vacation. If you are planning to eat
Speaker 1: more healthfily this year, would you eat more healthfuly on vacation.
Speaker 1: If you are planning to exercise more often, would you
Speaker 1: be willing to exercise on vacation. If you are planning
Speaker 1: to drink less, would you drink less on vacation than
Speaker 1: you normally would? I am not saying you would follow
Speaker 1: the exact same schedule and protocol because hey, vacation, But
Speaker 1: the key is whether you would eagerly ditch the protocol
Speaker 1: because you were on vacation or not. This framing came
Speaker 1: to me several years ago when I was on a
Speaker 1: cruise and was attending the orientation, the cruise director told
Speaker 1: us about all the fun things we could do on
Speaker 1: the ship and during our shore excursions, and then he
Speaker 1: grinned from ear to ear and let us all know
Speaker 1: that all diets are officially kicked to the curb. He
Speaker 1: then mimed kicking something off the stage. The crowd went wild.
Speaker 1: I found this all fascinating. I am sure that at
Speaker 1: least some people on that cruise had set some sort
Speaker 1: of goal to eat more healthfully during the year, and
Speaker 1: then decided that being on a cruise was a guilt
Speaker 1: free reason to not follow those eating patterns that they
Speaker 1: had set for themselves. But why what is it about
Speaker 1: being on a giant boat that would change anything about
Speaker 1: a goal you might have. I imagine the truth is
Speaker 1: that people didn't particularly want to eat more healthfully, at
Speaker 1: least among competing priorities, and so when there was a
Speaker 1: socially acceptable reason not to, people were happy to take
Speaker 1: the excuse. But for a long term habit to stick,
Speaker 1: you will need to call upon your problem solving abilities
Speaker 1: to figure out ways to stick with the habit. When
Speaker 1: life is different from the norm for some reason, you
Speaker 1: can't be calling upon your problem solving abilities to get
Speaker 1: out of doing it. So that is why I like
Speaker 1: this vacation question. If you would still more or less
Speaker 1: do something while on vacation, then you do in fact
Speaker 1: want to do it. For example, I still track my
Speaker 1: time on vacation because I find it useful to track
Speaker 1: my time. When I had my running streak going several
Speaker 1: years ago, I would run on vacation. For instance, I
Speaker 1: ran laps around that cruise ship deck and in the
Speaker 1: cruise gym. But not because I am some sort of
Speaker 1: paragon of virtue, trust me, I am not, but because
Speaker 1: I wanted to run. I really like running. I also
Speaker 1: like eating dessert, so I would not set a goal
Speaker 1: that involved not eating dessert. I always want a little
Speaker 1: bit to be okay. I think anyone ditching a diet
Speaker 1: on that cruise ship might have been better served by
Speaker 1: an eating goal that involved moderation in all things. So
Speaker 1: you could enjoy a cocktail on occasion or a treat
Speaker 1: on occasion, but generally eat produce and lean protein for
Speaker 1: most of your calories. Asking would I do this on
Speaker 1: vacation leads to the next question, which is figuring out
Speaker 1: how to structure a goal to fit in with your
Speaker 1: regular life and life when it is not so regular.
Speaker 1: I am not having to say, you know, you do
Speaker 1: something all the time, you do it every single day,
Speaker 1: but you might want to figure out how it will
Speaker 1: fit into what your day to day existence tends to
Speaker 1: look like. And guess what, you are busy. You do
Speaker 1: not have five hours a day to devote to optional things. Right,
Speaker 1: So we're going to take a quick ad break and
Speaker 1: then we'll be back talking about more ways to set
Speaker 1: goals and stick with them. Well, i am back. This
Speaker 1: is a longer episode, but I'm not interviewing anyone this week.
Speaker 1: I am talking about ways to set goals for the
Speaker 1: new year that increases the chances that they will happen. First,
Speaker 1: we talked about setting goals that you truly wanted to do,
Speaker 1: and one way to get at this is to ask yourself,
Speaker 1: would you do at least some version of this goal
Speaker 1: while on vacation? Would you stick with this habit at
Speaker 1: least to some degree on vacation. That is a good
Speaker 1: way to gauge motivation. Now we're talking about building a
Speaker 1: goal into daily life. I know people listening to this
Speaker 1: show are incredibly busy. We do not have hours a
Speaker 1: day to devote to optional things. Goals need to fit
Speaker 1: into life as it is, so in general, one of
Speaker 1: the best ways to make goals happen is to figure
Speaker 1: out how you can break your big goals into as
Speaker 1: small of steps as possible, and then you can figure
Speaker 1: out where these small steps can fit into most days.
Speaker 1: I like to think about small steps. Because the cruise
Speaker 1: director on that cruise I was talking about didn't tell
Speaker 1: us that all toothbrushing habits were officially kicked to the curb.
Speaker 1: He didn't tell us that oral hygiene no longer applied
Speaker 1: on this ship. I think people would have found that
Speaker 1: rather odd if he had kicked a toothbrush off the stage.
Speaker 1: So I was sitting there pondering why are people willing
Speaker 1: to stick with one healthy habit, that is brushing their
Speaker 1: teeth on vacation, but not others, like the diets. I
Speaker 1: think it is because toothbrushing is easy, reasonably pleasant, doesn't
Speaker 1: take much time, and we generally plan for aberrations in
Speaker 1: our routines. People take their toothbrushes with them on vacation. Indeed,
Speaker 1: if you want evidence that a lot of goals and
Speaker 1: habits are less about discipline than they are about structure
Speaker 1: and incentives. Consider that many people who don't think of
Speaker 1: themselves as good at habits might have a multi decade
Speaker 1: streak going of brushing their teeth daily. No one points
Speaker 1: to daily teeth brushing as evidence of their ironclad discipline.
Speaker 1: Nor do people try to weasel out of toothbrushing by
Speaker 1: claiming it is their birthday or are there on vacation,
Speaker 1: or they did it yesterday, yesterday was a really tough day,
Speaker 1: and name your excuse. People still brush their teeth. So
Speaker 1: if you have big goals, it might help to think
Speaker 1: about how you could make individual steps toward these big
Speaker 1: goals feel relatively easy, much like brushing your teeth. This
Speaker 1: is one reason that I am drawn to big, year
Speaker 1: long projects. When I set my goals, even very big
Speaker 1: things spread out over three hundred and sixty five days
Speaker 1: tend to become relatively little things. Back in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: I managed to read through all the works of Shakespeare
Speaker 1: by reading three pages in my anthology each day for
Speaker 1: an entire year. Reading all of Shakespeare's sounds like a
Speaker 1: huge project, and on some level it is. But his
Speaker 1: complete works fit into a one thousand page anthology, and
Speaker 1: if there are three hundred and sixty five days a year.
Speaker 1: That's just about three pages a day. The math works
Speaker 1: as long as you just keep going. I did the
Speaker 1: same in twenty twenty five with listening to all the
Speaker 1: works of Beethoven. That is something I set as a
Speaker 1: goal for the year. Now, this was about thirty minutes
Speaker 1: of listening a day when I followed a particular calendar.
Speaker 1: Some days it was a little more, some days it
Speaker 1: was a little less. But I know from my time
Speaker 1: logs that I spend at least thirty minutes driving around
Speaker 1: each day in my car, So listening to Beethoven just
Speaker 1: meant listening to something a bit more elevated than I
Speaker 1: usually would. It all fit pretty easily, no major discipline required.
Speaker 1: Breaking big goals down into small steps can even make
Speaker 1: things that have I've eluded us before finally happen. So
Speaker 1: I have made several bucket lists over the years. Longtime
Speaker 1: listeners have heard me talk about my lists of one
Speaker 1: hundred dreams, and over the years I'd often put something
Speaker 1: like write a collection of seasonal sonnets on the list.
Speaker 1: So sonnets are generally fourteen line poems with a certain
Speaker 1: rhyming scheme. So I put this on the list, and
Speaker 1: then I wouldn't do it. But a few years ago
Speaker 1: I decided to set a goal to write just two
Speaker 1: lines in a sonnet every day. Two lines is truly
Speaker 1: not that much. Now, these sonnets are in iambic pentameter,
Speaker 1: so two lines meant twenty syllables a day, very very easy.
Speaker 1: But it turns out that two lines a day add
Speaker 1: up two lines a day is one fourteen line poem
Speaker 1: a week. There are fifty two weeks in a year,
Speaker 1: so I have now written about one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: six of these poems over the last three years. It
Speaker 1: feels easy, unpleasant and rewarding enough that I plan to
Speaker 1: just keep going. We're going to take one more quick
Speaker 1: ad break, and then we'll be talking about how to
Speaker 1: make our goals happen. Well, we are back talking about
Speaker 1: how to set goals so we can actually accomplish them.
Speaker 1: Of course, all goals do not need to happen daily.
Speaker 1: Sometimes there might be reasons that you wouldn't want to
Speaker 1: have a goal structured as a daily habit, perhaps with
Speaker 1: things like lifting heavy weights or running for people who
Speaker 1: aren't going for streaks. In general, you do need some
Speaker 1: recovery time for habits like those. But in those cases,
Speaker 1: I think it helps to figure out what success would
Speaker 1: look like for you in terms of frequency, allowing for
Speaker 1: the reality of life, and then to figure out where
Speaker 1: exactly these things could fit into the schedule. So let's
Speaker 1: say you want to exercise more. That is a common
Speaker 1: goal people might set as a New Year's resolution. It
Speaker 1: is also hard to know hearing that what success would
Speaker 1: mean for any individual person, so let's aim to make
Speaker 1: it a little more specific. For example, I intend to
Speaker 1: exercise for thirty minutes three times a week, unless I
Speaker 1: am physically incapable of doing so. In general, I believe
Speaker 1: that three times a week is a habit, so that
Speaker 1: is probably a good number to shoot for. So let's
Speaker 1: say the answer is three times a week. Then you
Speaker 1: would need to look at your calendar for the next
Speaker 1: few weeks and go ahead and block these sessions in.
Speaker 1: Where can three exercise sessions go next week? How about
Speaker 1: the week after that? This is where you figure out
Speaker 1: if this is a reasonable goal for you or not.
Speaker 1: If you can't block in three sessions during the first
Speaker 1: week of January, it is not like other weeks will
Speaker 1: magically be better. So if you can't find three spots,
Speaker 1: you'll need to refine your goal or figure out ways
Speaker 1: to change your schedule. Maybe that can't happen immediately, but
Speaker 1: over ninety days maybe. But the truth is, I'd actually
Speaker 1: aim to block more than three sessions in if that
Speaker 1: is your goal, in order to make sure that the
Speaker 1: three sessions happen. Because here's the thing, life for sure
Speaker 1: will happen. Stuff will come up. If you make space
Speaker 1: for three sessions, there is a good chance one will
Speaker 1: be taken away from you when there is a work
Speaker 1: crisis or a kid gets it's the flu. If you
Speaker 1: set a goal of three and only make one or two,
Speaker 1: you might feel like a failure. It seems not to
Speaker 1: be happening regularly. But if you carve out space for
Speaker 1: four sessions and miss one, you have still hit your goal.
Speaker 1: If you carve out space for four and miss two,
Speaker 1: you'll still feel quite a bit closer than if you
Speaker 1: missed two out of three. Now, I know it is
Speaker 1: hard to carve out a backup slot in addition to
Speaker 1: carving out time for our priorities, but hey, this episode
Speaker 1: is about how to make goals happen. It's not always easy.
Speaker 1: There is a reason that we believe most people fail
Speaker 1: at their New Year's resolutions, and I think not planning
Speaker 1: for life to go wrong on occasion is a big
Speaker 1: part of that reason. Finally, setting goals that actually happen
Speaker 1: means being constantly reminded of your goals. How will you
Speaker 1: remember your goals? How will you make sure you don't
Speaker 1: forget until New Year's next year? As you are planning
Speaker 1: your life, How will you make sure time for your
Speaker 1: goals winds up in your schedule. Longtime listeners know that
Speaker 1: I advocate creating a regular weekly planning time. Each week,
Speaker 1: you sit down and around the same time and look
Speaker 1: forward to the next week. What is most important to
Speaker 1: do in the spheres of career, relationships and self. What
Speaker 1: do you need to do? What logistics do you need
Speaker 1: to sort out for all of this to take place?
Speaker 1: During this time, you can look at your goals list
Speaker 1: and think about what steps can happen and where during
Speaker 1: the week these should go. So look at the list frequently.
Speaker 1: You might also be helped by figuring out some form
Speaker 1: of accountability. Sometimes we drift away from goals because they
Speaker 1: no longer make sense in our lives. But if you
Speaker 1: do want to stick with your goals rather than drift
Speaker 1: away from them. Then it helps to find ways to
Speaker 1: boost motivation when it might flag. So can you enlist
Speaker 1: an accountability partner? An accountability partnership doesn't have to be elaborate.
Speaker 1: All you have to do is check in by email
Speaker 1: or by text once a week or so to see
Speaker 1: how things are going. If you don't want to keep
Speaker 1: sending texts about why you just couldn't find three times
Speaker 1: a week to work out, or last week you didn't
Speaker 1: need to do it either, or maybe even the week
Speaker 1: before that you don't really want to send that text, well,
Speaker 1: maybe you will work on your schedule in order to
Speaker 1: make it happen. The good news is that if if
Speaker 1: you do think about all these things, you will have
Speaker 1: a good chance of making your goals stick. You'll choose
Speaker 1: goals that you really want to do. You will think
Speaker 1: about how to make the individual steps of your goals easy.
Speaker 1: You will think about how they can regularly fit into
Speaker 1: your life. You will think about how they will fit
Speaker 1: into your life when life is complicated, and how you
Speaker 1: will create a backup slot so success is more likely
Speaker 1: even when things go wrong. You'll think about how you
Speaker 1: will be reminded of your goals and how you might
Speaker 1: keep yourself motivated through the year. Is that a lot maybe,
Speaker 1: but it is also likely the difference between success and
Speaker 1: feeling frustrated with the whole process. I want everyone to
Speaker 1: feel next December like they've been able to do what
Speaker 1: they set out to do. Success is truly possible when
Speaker 1: we achieve our goals and then we really do take
Speaker 1: life from great to awesome. I would love to hear
Speaker 1: about your New year's resolutions. Feel free to share them
Speaker 1: with me. You can always reach me at Laura at
Speaker 1: Laura vandercam dot com. What are you doing to make
Speaker 1: success more likely in the meantime? This is Laura. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening, and here's to making the most of our time.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,
Speaker 1: or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura
Speaker 1: vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.