Category Archives: Goals

Quietening The Super-Ego

I recently wrote about how the super-ego will try to prevent us doing anything risky and will try to keep us in our box. This has a purpose in that it is trying to prevent us getting physically or emotionally hurt; but it can also be very restricting as it doesn’t like us to set goals or do anything the least bit risky.

So how do we quieten the super-ego?

One technique that works very well for me is to utilize The Power Of Now. If you look at what the super-ego is saying to you it will either be:

  • Something about the past. For example, “What did you say / do that for?”, “You failed at that last time.”, “Don’t you see how silly you looked”. All past tense.
  • Something about the future. For example, “You’re going to screw this up”, “You’ll make a fool of yourself”, “You won’t be good enough”. All things to come in the future.

You see it never says things about now, always past or future and in that lies the key.

Eckhart Tolle, in his book The Power Of Now, teaches that you can dissociate yourself from all the past / future stuff by being present entirely in the moment, in the Now.

The techniques Tolle expounds are very much akin to meditation. I don’t want to go too much into this here; sufficient to say that if you become aware of these mental processes that take you out of the Now then you can more and more bring yourself into the Now. You can be present in the moment.

On a practical level I now watch for every time my mental process slips into either berating myself about the past or setting myself up for failing in the future. I now recognize this as the super-ego having a bash at me and I can say to myself, “OK, this is my super-ego. I don’t need this” and allow myself to focus on the moment. The unhelpful mental pictures or thoughts then just fade away into the back-ground. This has had the added bonus that my anxiety levels about being made redundant and going for interviews have reduced considerably.

It sounds simple to do; but it’s not an easy thing to achieve; it takes practice. The first step is to recognize when the super-ego is running your show, then you can start to do something about it.

What's Blocking The Goal?

Some people I meet are unable to define medium or long term goals. When I ask them, “What do you want to do?” their mind goes blank and they just shrug, “I dunno”.

Why is this?

We each of us have a part of our personality called the super-ego, you many also hear this called the ‘judge’ or ‘critic’. The purpose of this part of our psyche is to keep us out of harm, both physically and emotionally. If it thinks we’re getting into a situation that might be risky then it will start to send us warning messages. Often these can be feelings of anxiety or tension or stress and they’ll often be accompanied by thoughts like, “I can’t do that”, or, “I’m not good enough for this person”. Anything the super-ego can come up with to keep us in our box.

Now if you ask someone, “What are your life goals?” the super-ego will often panic! “A life goal? That sounds really risky, what if we fail? Then we’ll be a failure! What are you getting into here?”.

Bang! A mental block comes down as the super-ego goes into over drive and clamps down on anything it might think is a risk. It stuffs you firmly back into your box and slams the lid.

So what can we do about the super-ego, how do we unblock and put ourselves in a position to start setting goals for ourselves?

First let me say that there’s no magic cure for this. The super-ego is there for a purpose and it’s only trying to do it’s job, even though that may be limiting you.

To overcome the super-ego we must first become aware of its presence.

The next time you want to plan something for your future and you start to feel some anxiety look at your thought processes. If you’re doubting your abilities then that is your super-ego talking. Say hello to it, tell it you recognize it. If you feel it’s limiting you then you can even tell it you don’t need its input just now and see what happens to your anxiety level.

If you want to set ‘life’ goals; but are feeling blocked then I suggest you reassure your super-ego that everything is going to be OK and that you’d like it to be quiet for now.

Take a deep breath.

Now write your goals.

How To Set A SMART Goal

I’ve mentioned in recent posts that I’m over weight. I weigh 14st (197lbs to be precise) and my ideal weight for a man my height is 12st 6lbs. That’s 23lbs I have to loose if I’m to regain my ideal weight.

So the purpose of this post is to frame a goal to shed those pounds. Most of you will have heard of setting SMART goals to ensure that goals are met. I’m going to go through the steps of setting a SMART goal here to illustrate how a SMART goal differs from not-SMART goals and how it will help me achieve my goal.

Let’s begin with defining what we mean by a SMART goal. In case you haven’t guessed SMART is an acronym; it defines all the attributes a goal should posses for it to be achievable:

So how do I make my weight loss goal into a SMART goal?

Specific
A specific goal names exactly what the goal needs to achieve. An example of a non-specific goal I hear quoted often is, “I’m going to be successful’. Successful at what? How do you define or measure success? This non-specific goal in too open to interpretation and needs to be stated in terms of something real, like finances for example.

My goal is to loose weight. Specifically I’m going to loose 23lbs in weight so that I weigh 12st 6lbs.

Measurable
I used to get this confused with being specific. If course if I’m going to loose 23lbs then it’s measurable – haven’t I just said it’s 23lbs?

Really this attribute is about having the structures in place to measure your progress towards the goal. I’m not going to wake up one morning and say, “Hurray, I just lost 23lbs” (well I might; but more fool me if I do). No, I need a pair of scales – something to physically be able to measure my weight with and so determine my progress.

I have scales at home so my goal is measurable.

Attainable
Goals are great; but they must be set within some sort of boundaries. For an extreme example I might set a goal to take lunch on Pluto – not really attainable is it? Another nice example I saw recently on another blog was a goal to be the next king of England. As the writer pointed out, unless you’re in the royal blood line or you’ve a huge army prepared to conquer England by force this goal is not attainable. You could argue that all goals are ultimately attainable; but here you have to look closely at your goal – are you prepared to devote the time and energy to attaining this goal? If not then it’s not attainable.

Loosing 23lbs is attainable. I put it on, I can loose it.

Relevant
How relevant is this goal to the overall plan? It would be great to have a goal to be the next king of England; but if the overall plan is to gain entry to a Buddhist monastery then the goal isn’t relevant to the plan.

Loosing weight contributes to my desire to live a long and healthy life and so contributes directly to this. Yes, the goal is relevant.

Timely
Goals must be given a time frame for them to become real entities in your life. If I have a goal to loose 23lbs; but don’t give it a time line then where is the motivation going to come from to actually make me take the effort to shed that weight. Believe me, it will take effort.

This is often the big blocker. Here I have to nail my colours to the mast and state by when I’m going to loose that weight. Here goes….

By Christmas 2007. I’m going to loose that weight by Christmas this year.

There, I’ve stated it publicly for all to read.

Let’s recap this SMART goal:

  • Specific. I will loose 23lbs.
  • Measurable. With the bathroom scales.
  • Attainable. Yes, it’s within my abilities to do this.
  • Relevant. Yes, it will contribute to my health and longevity.
  • Timely. By Christmas this year (2007).

In a posting in the near future I will demonstrate how I’m going to achieve this goal.

Setting Life Goals

Who has life goals?

Until recently I didn’t think I had any life goals. Today I do; but a lot of people I speak to can’t tell me their life goals.

So what’s the block? Why don’t more people have life goals?

Firstly let’s look at what a life goal is. A life goal is either:

  • A goal it takes your entire life to accomplish. I.e. you only accomplish it on your death bed at the end of your life. Who wants one of those? No one? Didn’t think so.
  • It’s a goal that you achieve at some point and then maintain for the rest of your life. This looks to be a better bet.

OK, if a life goal is something you achieve and then maintain for the rest of your life, then it has to be achieved at some point in time before the end of your life. no? So really life goals are just like any other goals, right? You set the goal and, at some point down the line, you achieve it.

A life goal can seem like a big deal, “What goal do I want for the rest of my life?”. Scary question! On the other hand setting medium term or long term goals doesn’t seem like such a big deal. What do I want in five years or ten years? These are time frames I can relate to, they’re within my reach and they don’t scare me.

Does that mean any goal as a ‘life goal’? No, a life goal has to have long term implications, “Get my hair cut”, is a goal; but it doesn’t have life long implications so it’s not a life goal. For me a life goal is:

A goal that has life long implications.

Finally let’s take a look at some goals I posted a few days ago and see how they map into this new definition for life goals:

  1. To be my ideal weight (12st 6lbs) – is this a life goal? Yes it is, even though it’s got a relatively short time frame it’s something I want for the rest of my life.
  2. To live in a cottage by the sea – is this a life goal? Yes it is; but it has a longer time span of 14 years, which is when I retire.
  3. To earn more than €100K a year – is this a life goal? Not as it’s phrased, it’s a medium term goal of 4 years and then stops there. I need to work on this goal to ensure it becomes a life goal.
  4. To run a successful life coach business – is this a life goal? Yes it is. It has a medium time frame also of 4 years; but it’s something I want to be doing the rest of my life.

(That last goal is not a properly defined goal at all; but I’ll explain that in another posting).

I may have started off this session thinking I’d no life goals, where as in fact I’ve lots of them. So don’t be intimidated by the notion of setting ‘life goals’. Just set your goals and enjoy achieving them in this life.

My Top Goals

I was planning to introduce goals over time, along with some theory and tips about goal setting; but Leo over on Zen Habits has forced my hand by asking the question, “What are your [my] top goals?“.

As ever Leo’s posting is provocative and not to be denied an answer so here goes:

  1. What are my top goals?
    1. To be my ideal weight (12st 6lbs)
    2. To live in a cottage by the sea
    3. To earn more than €100K a year
    4. To run a successful life coach business
  2. What productivity system do I use?

    3. My productivity system is based strongly on GTD with a few principles adopted from Mark Forsters book “Do It Tomorrow”. The main idea I use from Do It Tomorrow is the Closed List that tightly defines what I’m going to do off my prodigious to-do list each day.

  3. What habits have I learned to support this?

    4. The main habit I’ve developed is to dump every idea about anything that needs doing straight into one of my in boxes as soon as it occurs to me. Now that I trust my productivity system I know that once an idea or task is in an in-box, doesn’t matter which one, that it will get done. This has freed my mind from the constant jumble of; “Must do this”, “Must do that”, Musn’t forget about x, y, z” so I have much less stress and much more freedom to come up with creative stuff.

Walking Goal Week 1

The week went well. Target 3 days, accomplished 3 days.

The dog (Chester) has started to come along, which is OK so long as he doesn’t want to keep diving into the ditch; but most of the time he’s kept up.

How has this contributed to the (so far unstated) weight loss goal? Well so far it hasn’t; but at least I haven’t put on any weight this week, which is a good thing. Mrs. H., on the other hand, has lost 2lbs over the week, so many congratulations are due to her.

Next week will present some further challenges. On Monday I have an interview in Cork at the time I’m supposed to be walking, and on Wednesday I shall be in the office at midday. Both will attempt to derail me from my target so I must try to work around these obstacles.

Will let you know how I get on next week.

Stepping Out

Well we did it.

My wife and I did our first days walk, something that’s to become part of the rest of our lives.

It felt good, the weather is sunny and warm, legs got a good stretch and lunch (a light ham salad and some fruit) tasted all the better for it.

Here’s to a life time of walking.

Setting Myself a Goal

This is a time of upheaval in my life with my permanent job coming to an end at the end of May and I’m in the process of reviewing all areas of my life. In GTD terms I’m doing a full review at 50,000 feet.

One of the areas I’ve really let slip over the years, if I ever had a grip on it at all, is my overall fitness level and in particular my weight. Some time ago quality pair of scales, the sort that tell you your fat and water percentages; but when I got on them yesterday I realized it was about 12 months since I last weighed myself. No need to tell you that I had put on weight!

So my current weight is 197lbs and my ideal (target) weight for a man my height is 173lbs. That’s 24lbs I’ve got to loose. Ouch! In fact I’m only 0.8 Body Mass Index (BMI) points away from being obese (double ouch).

OK, this is getting depressing. Let’s move on.

This goal is intended to contribute to the overall goal of improving my fitness and loosing those 24lbs. Note that I’m not defining the weight loss goal here as I have to do some more work defining that one. This goal is to start me back to gaining some sort of fitness as well as making a small contribution to losing weight.

The goal is to walk for 20 minutes, unencumbered, 3 days a week for a month.

This may not seem like a very arduous goal to achieve; but in the past I’ve set goals like this that were doomed to failure from the off because they were over ambitious. For example; walk for an hour 3 times a week. An hour for me is a long time to fit in around all my work and personal commitments and it was very rare for me to actually get away from my desk for an hour.

On the other hand 20 minutes is just 10 minutes outbound and then home again. This I’m sure I can do and part of the idea of doing this for a month is to establish the walking goal as a habit. The “unencumbered” bit is to stop me from hanging my camera and / or binoculars round my neck which are guaranteed to slow me down. This is walking for exercise sake and nothing else.

The intention is that if I can achieve this for a month then I increase the time to 30 minutes for a month, then 40 minutes and so on; but let’s get this month over with first.

So I have tomorrow marked as the first day and the end date is 7th May.

Here goes….