What can I do to jump-start my New Year鈥檚 resolution?
Making progress toward a goal sometimes means figuring out what to do when things go awry. Here鈥檚 something I wrote about the topic for as a :
Once you鈥檝e set out to achieve a goal and made a plan specifying when, where, and how to do so, what comes next?
Well, quite obviously, you enact your plan. You do what you said you鈥檇 do.
Or you don鈥檛.
In fact, the plans of even the most capable adults and children don鈥檛 always proceed exactly as expected. This is why there are age-old expressions about how the best-laid plans of mice and men frequently go awry.
Say, for example, I don鈥檛 end up going to the gym three weekday mornings every week. What now? Do I give up on my exercise goal entirely? Do I conclude that planning is futile?
Let me suggest that noticing that your plan needs revision is itself a victory. If you know you鈥檙e not making progress鈥攅ither on your planned behavior or the outcome it was intended to bring about鈥攜ou鈥檙e at least keeping your eye on the ball. Kudos!
The intentional and consistent observation of your own behavior is called self-monitoring.
The are two-fold.
First, self-monitoring directly counters the 鈥攖he deliberate avoidance of information that might cause you distress. Part of you doesn鈥檛 want to know how things are going in case, you know, things aren鈥檛 going so well.
Second, self-monitoring facilitates learning. Once I realize I鈥檓 not getting to the gym, I can ask myself why. Perhaps I鈥檒l discover that my gym routine is sort of boring and I should try jogging or yoga instead. Or that I need to motivate myself by bundling the chore of going to the gym with something I absolutely love to do鈥攍ike talk to my best friend on the phone or watch episodes of Top Chef. I鈥檝e learned something about myself, and that information can help me improve my plan.
顿辞苍鈥檛 assume that a failed plan is a failure. Plans often need more than a little tweaking to get right.
Do record your progress in a journal or app and, ideally, commit to sharing that information with at least one other person. The idea is to keep reality in full view鈥攁nd your head out of the sand.
