Sometimes changing your situation can be daunting. Where do you start? When do you start? What if you know what you want vaguely (increased income, healthy relationships, better job), but you do not know what it looks like to attain what you want? What then? It can be daunting when you are in this place. It might even become discouraging if you stay in this place for a long time.

Goal setting is not a resolution.

I was never one to set New Year’s Resolutions.

There was all this talk about people going to the gym and then they would stop after a few months. It didn’t work for them, so I had no motivation to try it for myself. Putting effort into something only to give up did not sound very effective.

I entertained the idea of setting a resolution – you know, once or twice – because everyone else was talking about it, but I was never someone that saw the value in setting resolutions in the way that they were presented to me. So for me to write about goal setting…something has changed in how I view working towards those things I want to happen one day.

Goal setting is more than saying that you want to change this or that.

Goal setting is an attitude change.

The first thing I had to do before I set any goals was rid myself of negative and limiting thoughts that had ingrained themselves into my discouraged being. How could I dream of the future and believe that I really could attain these big dreams for a better life, if I held on to the self-doubt and self-deprecating thoughts? Read my post on limiting beliefs.

Another important part of the goal setting journey is getting to know yourself. For goal setting to work, you need to know you. You need to know what it is that you want in the future. This is an ongoing process. The more you know yourself the better you can craft goals that you will achieve. Read my post on developing a personal reflection habit.

Give yourself permission to stand out.

I know the struggle of standing out. I know it is difficult to do things differently than what others expect. Whether it is because the process outlined is different from the way you want to go, or because you have a different outlook entirely.

A lesson that I have learned in this goal setting journey, of changing my attitude and knowing that my changing might cause me to stand out from the crowd, is that finding people that are willing to stand out in the crowd with you can keep you going when you lack the strength.

Embrace that in order to go where you want to go you might have to do things differently.

Read the following quotes from some of my virtual mentors: 

To be at a healthy weight in a country with a population that is 70% overweight, you have to be different from most people. – Stephen Guise, author of Mini Habits for Weight Loss 

If you will live like no one else later you can live like no one else. – Dave Ramsey, financial mentor

Be the exception. – Darren Hardy, success and productivity mentor

As I continue on my personal development journey I notice that my behavior is more and more focused on my own choices. I have come to the realization that if I want to make progress, I often need to step outside of what not only has become a habit for me…but what is also considered normal behavior for an American in the twenty first century.

My high school year book quote was “What is popular is not always right. What is right is not always popular.” In those days I was mostly focused on the truth of this in terms of religious beliefs. Yet as you can see from the above quotes, there are other instances where we would benefit from evaluating our decisions and actions to consider options that are different from what everyone else embraces.

It is because I am surrounding myself with the work of those quoted above and others focused on personal growth and behavior change that I am learning to give myself permission to stand out and do things differently.

Where do you start? When you start? Start here. Start now.

If you want to change your situation, setting goals in the areas you want to change will help you move forward.

To get started:

• Reframe your limiting beliefs.
• Embrace the positive and allow yourself to dream.
• Get to know yourself.
• Let yourself stand out where it is important and find others to stand out with you.
• Dare to do things differently.

I’ll talk more about goal setting in the next post.

I’d love to hear from you. Do you have a vision of what you want to attain or are you struggling with clarity?

Why I am interested in behavior change.

A Little Background

In college I studied the behavior patterns of people in groups through the discipline of Sociology. After graduation I found myself working with children of all ages providing various levels of behavior training and interventions (for more on my background read my About page). Years later I am still working with children to help them improve their social interactions and behaviors.

Lately, however, I’m not just working with children on their behaviors. I am working on my own behaviors as well. In 2017 I went through Michael Hyatt’s goal setting course for the first time. Through this course I realized the importance of not only setting goals for my life, but also for focused behavior change to help me make progress towards my goals.

Where I Am Now

In my recent career pivot into the world of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), I have learned the principles of behavior and behavior change. With the goal setting course to guide my yearly planning and a job that is focused on behavior training, I am now more aware of the effects of intentional growth versus learned behaviors.

I started this blog to reach out to others that might be where I was before my goal setting journey – stuck and discouraged. I hope I can also be a motivation to folks that want more understanding of how our behavior impacts our situation.

My Why

Last week’s post mentioned the importance of giving yourself time to understand the why when you are pursuing a goal.  The why is the deeper reason that you are facing this goal or overcoming your fear to do something big.

As I am encouraging you all to dig deep into why you want to change, I wanted to explain to you why I care so much about behavior change:

Our behavior has a big impact on our life. As mentioned in the post, Why is Behavior Change Important for Personal Growth?, our behaviors can propel us forward or keep us stuck and without momentum. There is another piece though. Our behavior in one area of our life impacts our behavior in other areas.

Once I became aware of the first behavior that I wanted to change, it wasn’t long before I found another area that I wanted to change. If you go with the momentum you can make big changes that impact your life in big ways, one step – one behavior change – at a time. I am seeing it happen in my own life.

It is a science I understand. I will never forget the day in high school that my AP Physics teacher looked up at my best friend and I, we were bemused and probably also laughing and somewhat off task, and he sighed and shook his head. He had just tried to explain and show us a cool physics thing and we didn’t get it.

Behavior is not that for me. It grabs my attention and makes me want to understand. I enjoy learning evidence based practices for personal growth that have an impact on behavior. I am also seeking out ways to learn how to use the science of behavior and the principals of learning with adults on the job.

The focus on behavior has been in my path for a long time-maybe that means I have been heading in the right direction, despite being and feeling stuck for so long!

That’s it! I hope that list helps you understand some of why I created this blog. I hope we can join together in this behavior change journey!

Before you go…Which category do you see yourself in?

A) I feel stuck and/or discouraged in the direction of my life.

B) I’m wondering how my behavior affects my current situation.

c) I’m here for something different.

 Put A, B, or C in the comments section. If it’s C, tell me what it is you’re here for. 

We are already acting in ways that determine our future. However, we are often not aware of what we are doing. All of our actions are behaviors. We have used those behaviors to form habits. Sometimes we have created really great habits that will propel our lives forward. Other times we have unintentionally created habits that will keep us stuck and drain our momentum. Let’s look at why behavior change is important for personal growth.

Behavior and it’s Effects

If it is something we are doing, it is a behavior.

Sometimes our learned behaviors don’t serve us in the way we would like.

Think about how much of our financial situation is based on our behavior. Consider how much of our struggle with reaching a healthy weight or growing in our spirituality is based on our behavior. Even our success or failure in a particular job or relationship is based on our behavior.

Behavior Change Important for Personal Growth

In my journey to set goals that I will actually keep, I am learning that a lot of my success or failure in meeting goals are affected by my behavior. What am I doing to make it more likely that I meet the goals I set? I am learning to look critically at my actions and seek ways to improve my behaviors.

Tips for Taking a Step to Change Your Behavior

These tips might seem incredibly basic, but sometimes I think we make things too complicated.

2 Aspects of Behavior Change:

1. All the change shouldn’t happen at once.

If one habit takes 66, or more, days to become ingrained we should limit the changes we  focus on.

2. Give yourself time to understand the why.

When you are setting a behavior goal/trying to build a new habit, it’s important to slow down and understand the why.

Now, let’s unpack these aspects.

Change Takes Time

Changing behavior takes time. It is a fast world we live in, but if you want to change your behavior or build new habits give yourself time.

If you want to build a new habit, the average number of days that it takes to build a new habit is 66 days. It might take less than 66 days, but it also might take more than 66 days (based on a research article by Dr. Phillippa Lally on habit formation).

If we take on too many behaviors at once we are more likely to fall off the behavior-change-wagon.

Understand The Why

The last time I set a health goal and did not take the time to understand why the changes were important, I didn’t achieve what I wanted to achieve. I wanted to take the fast track. I made a goal to establish the new habits without a deeper understanding of why my habit changes would be important.

Instead of going somewhere and accomplishing my health goal, I fell off the behavior-change-wagon…after a day or two. I did not take time to understand the why.

Summary

In Conclusion, our habits can either move us forward or keep us stuck. To continue to grow we need to look at our behaviors and their effects. If we are trying to change our behaviors we need to remember 2 things. 1) Take it slow. 2) Understand why the change is important.

If you’re focused on behavior change and personal growth give me an “I’m in” in the comments below.

Behavior Challenge: Think of a goal that you have or a goal that you want to set. Dig deep into why this goal is important to you. If you have already identified a “why” for your goal, go back and revisit your “why” to help you keep up your motivation.

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Read more on Habit Formation:

How Habits are Formed | Beginners Guide

3 Reasons to Change Your Bad Habit

We often use positive or negative outcomes to judge the quality of our decisions. If I earned a degree that I am “not using” I must have made a bad decision. If I use my degree daily I must have made a good decision. Is this focus on the end result the best way to look at the classification of our decisions as good or bad? Perhaps you use your degree daily, but you don’t like your job. Was it still a good decision?

I listened to a podcast this week that discussed the typical way we measure our decisions. This podcast was a great follow up to my previous post on developing a personal reflection habit.

When we are reflecting on our beliefs or our decisions it can be easy to do what Annie Duke mentioned in her interview on the Science of Success podcast. She called it resulting.

What is resulting?

Resulting is when we give the decision that ends in something positive the label of a good decision. It is when we give the decision that ends in something negative the label of a bad decision. Annie Duke says that when we do this, we are providing an emotional reaction to the result rather than actually evaluating the result.

Therefore, when we use the outcome, or result, of the decision to judge the quality of our decisions we aren’t getting the complete picture. An important idea presented in the podcast is to hold your emotional reaction to the outcome, or result, of a decision at a distance.

With the emotional reaction at a distance you can classify the quality of your decision based on evaluation.

As someone that is trying to form a more intentional and forward moving life, I am finding that my past decisions sometimes sneak back into view and try to distract me from where I am going. I sometimes give in to the idea that, based on my current results (not being where I “should” be or want to be) that I must have made all the wrong decisions.

A less emotional response would be for me to consider these decisions from all the angles in which I originally made the decision and then evaluate them – keeping in mind any data that might be relevant to the evaluation of the experience.

It sounds complex, but let’s image getting our emotional responses under control. Think about how different things would be if we viewed our decisions with a more accurate understanding.

I’m considering using this strategy as I decide what type of career focused training or course I should take as a next step. What decisions would you like to rethink or make using this evaluation approach to judging the quality of your decisions?

Behavior Challenge: Pick a decision that would benefit from putting distance between your emotions and the result. Listen to the podcast for more on how Annie Duke suggests you focus your evaluation.

If you enjoyed this post or want to share about a decision you want to evaluate, comment on this post and let me know!