It’s not you. It’s your goals.

Have you ever felt badly about not reaching your goals?

You are not alone.

But, it is not you, it’s your goals.

Goals aren’t necessarily all bad

But they aren’t the answer to everything either.

Let’s take the following example, Person X has spent the last 20 years sitting at a desk, they were fit in their 20s when they suddenly think, “what happened to me?” and “I have to do something about this.”

By this, they mean the 50 or 60 pounds they have gained, the sleep apnea, high blood pressure and pre-diabetes they have recently been diagnosed with.

X resolves to lose 50 pounds this year. Start exercising regularly. Eat more vegetables.

Three seemingly sensible goals. But in my experience, they are basically worthless.

Not because X doesn’t want to do these things or that they aren’t important to them. No, because they are goals, and that is a problem.

Even if you love goals, these ones are too vague. 50 pounds in one year is the most specific and it still has no action required. 6 months from now X could still be thinking about losing 50 pounds this year, it is now harder but still remotely possible.

In 11 months X will feel like a failure. Even if they lost 20 pounds they will still be thinking about what they didn’t do rather than what they did do.

Goals work best as a measure

Goals are particularly useful when you are already doing something, as a measure of progress.

You regularly run 3-4 times a week and now want to sign up for a 10 KM run. Your goal is to keep running with more structure, maybe follow a plan and see if you can run 10 KM in under an hour.

A few months later in your first “official” 10 KM, you finish in 58 minutes. Congrats! Now you can use that 10 KM route as a measure of how you are maintaining your fitness.

You have a baseline.

I know what you are thinking, what if they finish in more than an hour?

This is where goals can help or hurt.

If our running friend asks themselves “Was it the wrong training? The wrong race? Or something else?” They could modify the goal or the event for the next time. However, this is often not what happens.

Goals are black and white

Yes, I did it or no, I did not. Goals are about checking a box or crossing a line. They come with an end point not a learning curve.

Goals are about proving yourself, not improving yourself.

When it comes to changing our health or fitness, improvement is better than pass or fail. Achieving a goal when it comes to fitness often means the end of that goal and then eventually you are back where you started. Without another goal what is the point?

So the up and down that comes with trying to achieve a goal feels harder and harder. A little further away every time as failure seems a certainty and who wants to feel like a failure?

I prefer experiments

Maybe because I am a science nerd, but experiments make more sense to me. Experiments are less about pass or fail and more about testing a theory. If you love goals then I would encourage you to think about them like process goals as opposed to outcome goals, but this still has a pass or fail element.

Let’s take the weight loss goal for example.

If person X ultimately feels that success means losing 50 pounds what is the first experiment they could run? Maybe it would be about eating more fruit. Maybe X thinks if they ate fruit in the afternoon they might be satisfied and eat less high calorie processed foods. Substitute an apple for their normal cookies, crackers, or muffins at 3:00 PM and see what happens, but they still need the following:

Three very important ingredients when running your experiment:

1. Make it short. 30 days is good. 30 days long enough to see a difference and to know if this is sustainable. Importantly it also will establish if you like it or think it is something you should do. Liking it is critical for long-term success. Shoulding on yourself never works.
2. Don’t have a plan B. Completely commit to fruit at 3:00 every day for 30 days. This doesn’t mean you have to be 100% successful, but it means that you are only focusing on this one thing. Simplicity is the answer.
3. Document your findings. How did you feel? What happened when you didn’t eat your fruit? Why? What got you off track? Did you lose weight? Did you feel better? Be specific. This is an important step because if you ate fruit and cookies, perhaps this isn’t a great goal. If on the days you ate fruit you also weren’t snacking between 5:00-9:00 PM maybe this is a keeper? For future reference write it down or check it off. This is not only motivating (remember dopamine) but it is important for your experiment.

There is no finish line

Whether we like it or not, health and fitness has no finish line. It is an ongoing process. Sometimes we will be fitter, and sometimes not so much. The benefit of experimenting is that you can’t fail.

You only learn.

Is that the right experiment for me? Do I need to adjust my vision of my future self or the timeline? When do I do best? What detours have I overcome? Challenges? What is my kryptonite?

Experiments allow you to feel good about yourself and isn’t that the most important thing in the end? No one wants to always be punishing themselves or constantly feel like a failure. It isn’t a great strategy for long term success.

Next time you feel bad about not achieving your goals, remember it’s not you, it’s the goal.

Change your mind, change your health,

Shayla