No matter what goals you have the output you expect has to be greater than the effort you have to make in order to get there. It has to be worth trying hard enough. What happens with many of the health goals we set up is that we can’t see the real value that we will get from our effort. Often we don’t want to admit that we don’t feel all that good at the moment. We convince ourselves that we are “rather fit”, “don’t weigh too much”, “that our high blood pressure is inherited and will not be effected by a healthier life” etc. Those thoughts help us to feel a bit happier and more relaxed in our daily life. The thoughts are a kind of cheap and not too unhealthy drug.
What we feel today always weighs over what we believe we might feel tomorrow!
The same goes for carrier goals and financial goals but in this blog I stick to health since that is a common new year’s resolution.
As soon as you get aware of how you function you can work your way around it and talk yourself out of bad habits. The result is that you can reach the goals that will benefit you in the long run.
- Clarify the benefits from your goals
- Overestimate the benefits from your goals (since they are in the future they look smaller)
- Make the goals real by creating a movie you can play inside your head, over and over
- Underestimate the good of how it is today (since it is now it seems better than it actually is)
- Be realistic when you do this exercise so you don’t get depressed by seeing the situation today a bit worse that you thought of it yesterday – nothing has changed!
- If you slip – get back on track by refreshing your view of your current situation and your goals.
It is quite common that people at this stage start to argue that they don’t really need to set health goals. For you that might be true but if you look at statistics it’s pretty obvious that most people underestimate the risk they take by not losing weight or not changing bad habits. If we saw the current situation as it really is and the future we are facing we would definitely not continue as we do. I communicate a couple of times every week with people that I can see are heading towards a not very good future and I am surprised by the creativity people show when it comes to find excuses for not changing tracks! So please be honest to yourself! It will be worth all the effort just for a slight health increase. As always – if you have questions or doubts – don’t hesitate to contact me!
