Every year millions swear that this year they are going to lose weight, stop smoking or start an exercise program. Most have the best intentions of doing so but quit after the first failure.
Regardless of how you set out to achieve your goal there is one change you should consider making for 2008. It does not involve a personal trainer or eating Tofu it is simply a different perspective.
Let me start by asking a question; is an A on an exam a success or failure?
No need to think about that one as its a no-brainer. How many parents would be happy if their struggling child brought home an A on their exam? Rest assure that anything 90% or above would be cause for celebration!
What if your son or daughter came home from their first day of school in tears because they had to take every test and exam, including the final exam on the first day of school! Most parents would say that is absurd, how can you be expected to meet those standards on the first day?
Yet we do it to ourselves when set the expectation that we must lose weight or stop smoking for the next year. No chance for preparation, no opportunity to learn and no room for mistakes! The problem is we are applying a rather cruddy statistical model to our new years goal. We are also viewing slip-ups or down days in the harshest of light. Because of this unrealistic goal we give up at the first slip-up, and thus we set ourselves up to only measure failure not success. The solution is to establish a time period that allows us to learn, adapt and measure success.
Break it down to smaller time periods. This allows us real and authentic success while at the same time allowing us to see how little slip ups impact our goal even in the shortest of time spans. It is important to say that the success we achieve is an authentic success, because it is. There is nothing in the way of self-delusion or babying that occurs if when we crunch the numbers to compare our successes and slip-ups.
So I say a find the right time period for you even if it is down to the minute. If the office candy is calling you and you are able to resist it for the entire day then you have accomplished 480 conscious will power throughout the day. It sounds silly, but it is absolutely the truth. Even if you slip up and have one “bite-sized” Twix bar you still have over 479 moments of successfully saying no. Focus on that accomplishment as it is something to be proud of. You have an accumulation of legitimate achievement that serves as a building block for more.
So back to the A. If I were to make a New Week’s resolution and set out 90% as a target goal for my week that would equate to 6.3 days. Plenty of room for a slip-up or mistake and plenty of legitimate success to minimize the impact of a mistake. Even a 50% success would put 3.5 successful days to balance your week. Keep in mind that you must allow yourself time to learn and apply information in your pursuit of your goal. Just as you would give your child leeway when learning something new, you must do the same for yourself. If you were able to achieve a 90% target for a 30 day month you would have 3 days of “failure” and 27 days of success. How does that minute amount of “failure” feel in the face of overwhelming success?
90% is a high standard but I use it because it places the 3 days of the month you consider “failure” in a proper perspective. We tend to isolate our feelings of failure from the truth of our past successes. Viewed by themselves they are reasons enough to give up, but when reconciled against ongoing and increasing success they fade almost to the point of being immeasurable.
I will leave you with this to consider; Even a 99% success rate, the closest to “perfect” REQUIRES that you completely “FAIL” for 4 days of the year. That is 4 days to tell yourself that you have succeeded 361 times!