Identifying the Steps to Reach Your Goal

Let's say you have a goal, a result you want to reach. To get there from where you are, you will have to identify the action steps to take.

For example, if your goal is to improve at tennis so that you win at least half of your games you might identify steps like the following.

• Practice one hour three times a week with someone as good as or better than you are
• Take a tennis lesson once a week
• Do specific weight-lifting exercises twice a week to strengthen your backhand swing
• Always use the stairs at work to increase cardio endurance

If you see no improvement after a month, revisit the steps to see which need adjusting. (Disclaimer: I don't play tennis, so take this example list with a grain of salt, not as real tennis advice.)

If your goal is to lose weight, as mine was, these might be some of your steps.

• Do a cardio workout at least four times a week for 60 minutes each
• Decrease sweet treats (cookies, cakes, name your weakness) one day at a time, eventually cutting back by 95%
• Lift weights twice a week (not randomly, but with a plan)
• Gradually move from whole milk down through the range to skim milk, with a set date for each change
• Eat more fish and less butter, and have salad at least 4 times a week

These are not all the steps, and other steps would work better for someone else, but you have the idea.

Some goals will be easier to identify the steps for than others. Remodeling your kitchen or learning a new language—easy to identify; changing career fields and finding a great job in the new field—not so easy, but still possible. The key is to break the process down into very specific steps, identifying which ones need other ones accomplished before they can start, e.g., getting a passport comes before practicing your new language in another country. (For more info on this, check out the jargon of project management, especially dependencies and precursors.)

To track my process goals, I needed a checklist of some sort. For me, an Excel spreadsheet works well. There is a row for every date, and columns for weight that morning, cardio time, other exercises I track, and a set of columns for what I eat each day. This design makes it easy for me to spot correlations between what I eat, how I work out, and my weight (the actual goal).

Being a visual person, I don't skip days because they leave a gap in the colorful graph I run periodically to see my progress. The graph also makes it easier for me to see that, although my weight goes up and down daily, the trend over time is clearly in the right direction.

In the past I have used bright colored stars on my calendar as a reward for tracking process goals. While that is fun and very visual, I got better results with the spreadsheet. The key is to find out what works for you. Perhaps it's a daily check-in with a specific friend, or posting your workout progress on Facebook, or putting a quarter in a jar for every "good choice" you make (and perhaps taking one out for each "bad choice" as well). What you measure is where your attention will be, so set yourself up with a process that works with your goal and your personality.

The Real Purpose of My Treadmill

There are people I know who don't like using a treadmill because walking ought to get you somewhere, not just wear you out going nowhere. I never had a good counter-argument until this week. I realized that if I sat on the couch listening to my favorite music with headphones, people would think I was doing nothing and interrupt me. If I listen to the same music with my earbuds while on a treadmill or any other exercise equipment, no one bothers me; they assume I am busy!

The epiphany here is that the purpose of the treadmill might be just to get you uninterrupted time alone with your favorite music. And THAT would be worth it even if it didn't make you healthier on the way there! (But it does, and that's even better.)

Let the playlist begin!

Result Goals and Process Goals

First let me clarify from my last post that yes, I did meet my weight loss goal by September last year. Part of how I did this involves a distinction between goals about the results I want and goals about the process to achieve them.

When I can picture the result I want to end with—whether it's a new job, a new weight, my first cruise, or finishing a master's degree—I call that a result goal. Sometimes the result I want seems so far away, I don't know how to get from here to there. That's when I break it down into action steps, and create a process of steps that will get me where I want to end up... if I follow the process. In the case of last year's weight loss, I focused on getting to my fitness classes as often as possible, usually 5-10 times a week, and eating a little more carefully. I paid attention to the process, and the result took care of itself.

I think I learned this method from my children. They wanted good grades in school, and the way to achieve that goal was to do the homework and the classwork and all the reading and taking notes. When they worked the process, they achieved the results. The success of this method does depend on identifying the right steps for your process. Studying four hours a day does not ensure weight loss, and dancing ten hours a week does not help you get an A in Chemistry.

From another perspective, you can double-check that your result goal is realistic (see SMART goals) if you can identify the steps that you could take to achieve it. If you can't find the steps that could get you from where you are to your goal, perhaps it's not a real goal, just a ticket to take a guilt trip for not meeting it. For example, if I were to set a goal of becoming a professional football player, no amount of steps could get me to that goal, starting where I am today. Professional chef, maybe. Calculus teacher, lots of steps but probably. I'm not actually interested in cooking or calculus, so motivation to work the process would be my big problem.

Summarizing, identify your result goal, determine the steps it will take to achieve that and use them to create your process goal. Then keep your eye on the result goal for motivation but work through the process goal to get there.