Think As Inc

Special Reinforcements for Stubborn Goals

May 17, 2010 on 3:38 pm | In life coaching | No Comments

We all have stubborn goals – the ones that we want to accomplish, but that we somehow never seem to do.  Losing those pounds, working out regularly, and building that nest egg are some common stubborn goals.  For these tough goals, the achievement itself is obviously not enough incentive.  We need to call in special reinforcements to kick us into gear:

Reward yourself for doing nothing.  Attach something you really want to progress on your goal.  If you like massages, get a weekly massage for every week that you hit your weight loss/ exercise/ diet/ savings goal.  However, the key to this strategy is to get the massage BEFORE you even start your goal and to do this regularly in the first few weeks of your goal, whether or not you make progress.  A key mistake people make is to withhold their reward for only when they’ve accomplished their first big step.  Instead, use the early rewards as a taste (and potent reminder) of things to come.  Once you realize how great the reward is, you will not want to give it up, so you will stick to your goal.

Double the deterrent.  Sometimes knowing how many calories are in that junk food is not a strong enough deterrent.  But what if you count calories AND dollars?  Add up the dollars spent on junk food, and see if the money wasted (or the combo of the money plus calories) affects you more than just the calories.  Perhaps when you see that junk food adds not only to your waistline, but also to your debt load, the double deterrent will turn you onto your goal. 

Scare yourself into submission.  If you need to lose weight, read articles on the Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and other ailments related to obesity.  If you need to work out, get familiar with how much bone density and muscle mass is lost with age.  If you need to save more money, read stories about bankruptcy and falling on hard times.  It would be great if we were inspired to change for purely positive reasons.  However, a dose of negative reality might do the job even better.