Conquer Your Goals Part 2 - Process Goals
If you haven’t read the first installment in my goal setting series, go here. Then come back to this article.
Before you start moving toward a goal, you have to know where you are. You can’t get to your destination without a starting point. If you’ve been active, eating well, and have a specific athletic performance goal, your goals will be more aggressive. If you haven’t been active since high school and eat like crap, your goals will be more conservative and build up over time.
It may have taken you years to get out of shape. You won’t get back in shape in 30 days.
Process goals are the steps that you take along the road toward your outcome goal, or what you ultimately want to achieve. Think of each process goal as a rung on a ladder. Each one builds on the next and takes you toward your destination.
For example, let’s take an example outcome goal: “lose 20 pounds by March 31.” There are dozens of things you may need to do to accomplish your goal. Let’s a take a “simple” daily process goal: “go to the gym and work out.”
On the surface, it seems simple. However, first: do you have workout clothes that fit? If not, then you have to budget and go shopping. Do you have a gym membership that’s affordable and convenient? If not, then you have to research and visit gyms, which adds more time and effort to the process. Have you set aside a reasonable amount of time per week for your workouts? If not, what has to change in your schedule? That’s a huge challenge for many people.
Ok, you made it to the gym. But what do you do for your workout? What’s a waste of time, and what will take you closer to your goal? Here’s a good place to start, but there’s another challenge. Do you want to hire a professional to help you? I’d recommend it, but it isn’t necessary for some.
The key to all process goals is that they’re extremely specific and easy. Here’s a less than ideal process goal if you’re completely new to good nutrition: “pack lunch every day instead of eating out.” When are you going to shop for groceries? What are you going to pack? How do you know what to pack? When are you going to prepare it? When are you going to pack it?
Each little step that’s required to meet the goal builds up to create a barrier for change. I’ve never met anyone that didn’t think it was worthwhile to spend time in the gym. You don’t fail because you don’t want to succeed. You fail because you don’t have a system to address all the little things.
Start your process goals small. Your first goal might be to get your workout clothes together. Don’t think about anything else until that’s taken care of. Then it might be to research and join a gym. Then you can think about scheduling; how many workouts you can commit to per week, when you’ll do it etc. Then your goal will shift to something like “go to the gym on Monday and Thursday.” At first, don’t even necessarily worry about what you’ll do when you get there. Just build the habit into your schedule of showing up and doing SOMETHING. After a week or two of consistency, start setting more specific training goals.
Here’s a nutrition example – instead of committing to a fad diet or meal plan, start taking a multivitamin every day. Build the habit of being intentional with what you put in your body, even if it’s just a vitamin. Then, you might decide that you’re going to drink a pre-made shake for breakfast on your way to work. Then, you could find another healthy pre-made meal to have for lunch, rather than eating out. Notice I keep saying “pre-made;” that takes shopping, cooking, and packing out of the equation.
The fewer steps you have to achieve each individual process goal, the better. You need laser-like focus. Make it easy to succeed.
I generally like to see consistency with a process goal for 2-3 weeks before moving on to something else. That’s not always necessary, but it’s useful for habit-building.
Process goals snowball. Doing one tiny thing feels like nothing. But it does two things – it takes a step forward (when you hadn’t been taking ANY steps forward) and it builds confidence and momentum. You’ll be surprised how well things start moving when you start small.
In part 3, I discuss identity, one of the essential underlying reasons why we do things.
The longer you wait to start moving toward your goals, the less likely you are to succeed. If you’re looking for a fitness trainer in the Mt Juliet/Hermitage/Nashville TN area, online fitness training, or just need some advice to get your fitness program started, contact me