The touchstone for today is ‘G’ – goals. This touchstone is to remind you not only of your ultimate goal, and the reasons for the goal, but also for your more immediate goals. To this end, I encourage you to set up a chart to trace your performance daily:
- Staying on your eating program
- Activity for the day – type, time, and count (if applicable)
- Thoughts, feeling, frustrations in a journal type entry
- Your goal for the week and motivation for the week.
In the ‘M’ touchstone I mentioned having a list of what you were going to eat for the day. This performance record can be kept at the bottom of you list. As you line out the foods you eat, you can enter the thoughts you have and the activities you do. Also very important is to put foods you eat outside the program and why you ate them – we will get into why later with the ‘C’ touchstone.
Let’s get back to talking about Goals. Your ultimate goal will be the weight you determined to be your goal. Hopefully you made this an obtainable goal. You can always lower it when you near the first goal. So, say you are 220 lbs and think you should be 115 pounds. There is nothing wrong in making 150 pounds your goal, and then deciding to go to 130 pounds, then again lowering it to 120 pounds, etc. That way, if you feel good at 150 pounds – good, you are there. But if you want to try to go further, you can.
Although we think about the goal as being pounds lost, there are other goals we have.
- Become healthier
- Become fitter
- Become stronger
Don’t lose sight of these goals. They are the ones which will keep your motivation up.
While time goals are OK – they tend to put demands on us, stressing us out when we don’t meet them, depressing us and encouraging us to give up. For those reasons, I don’t recommend setting time goals. I had one year in my mind as the length of time it should take me. Watch that ‘should’ word. We will talk about it again in the ‘I’ and ‘L’ touchstones. I have reached the one year, but not the goal. So I have to shrug off the time limit and determine to continue – because I deserve to be a slimmer, healthier me.
Each week we need to go over our progress, do the weigh-in (around the same time of day each time) and once a month do our measurements. Remember, if we lose 10% if our initial body weight, our health is better. See this post about measurements and tracking table.
As we contemplate the past week, we can see what patterns evolve. If we ate extra foods, we see what types and what was happening – a special event, an emotional time of loneliness or sadness, a stressful time. Then we can determine if this was a choice we made, or if it was a situation we could deal with in a different way. Such as loneliness – maybe call a friend or family member – walk over to the neighbors to say HI – talk a long walk and enjoy the outside – even take a bath by candlelight. Then the next time it comes up, we have alternatives to eating.
Check to see if you drank your water, stayed within the program eating, choose healthy snacks, did our activity. Think about the next week. Write down what your motivation will be this week. Then write a goal for that week. For example, you find that you walked an average of 7000 steps per day (10,000 steps a day is the standard). Make a goal to up that average by 200 or more steps a day. A good pedometer will track your steps each day and even keep 7 days worth of data for you.
One of the most important factors is – do not put yourself down for missing your goal. Instead, look for the things you did ‘correctly’ and give yourself a pat on the back, like you remembered to write everything down or your off plan eating diminished. Nothing will be gained by being hard on yourself – actually, it could push you into giving up. The only way you won’t reach the ultimate goal is if you give up.
Keep reminding yourself ‘I deserve to be a slimmer, healthier me”.
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Tags: accountability, activity, alternate behaviors, goals, habits, health, meal plan, motivation, Performance Record, Setting Goals, Time Goals, touchstone, Touchstones, Weight Loss
You’re so right about not setting time goals. I have done that in the past and it sets me back big time when I don’t reach them. Now I have a goal of losing 2lbs per week (ultimate goal is to lose 50lbs), drink more water and to cut out the sugar. Thanks for the tips. I’ve bookmarked you and will check back soon.
Erica
Thx for article