A year ahead: How setting goals can make life better
The idea of promises made to yourself on New Year's Eve, for Western culture is not new, so even in Russia, we have become accustomed from year to year to swear to ourselves that we will definitely quit smoking in this, begin to eat right, read more books and stop looking at friends on success on Facebook . On New Year's Eve, according to whatever calendar they celebrate, even in ancient times, people equally made a vow to behave better in the face of the gods — in Babylon, in Rome, and in Ancient Egypt.
Psychologically, this approach is more than justified. We are used to thinking about time, roughly speaking, geometrically: linearly or cyclically, any important date becomes a marker separating the segments. We secretly choose a new point from which to move. New year, birthday or Monday are just conventions that help us make a decision, but you shouldn’t cling to them and make them absolute. Any day can be the beginning of change, and if you feel the need for useful changes, say, on July 15, you should definitely not wait for a new one, in 2016, to start implementing them.
Now it’s easy to list the most popular promises - many of them relate to things that only indirectly affect our lives, so it's easy to forget about them and mentally move the beginning of a new life later. Green juices and jogging, garbage sorting or charity are certainly important, but for many people, a cup of coffee and cigarettes on their way to work is enough for them to function every day, however sad that may be. In order to thoroughly deal with each situation, you can consult with the opinion of our psychologist - there is also advice on how to start life from scratch. For many, however, the New Year symbolizes, rather, the work on the bugs, the erection of what is already there, and the desire to cut a little on the way to a more fulfilling life.
The more abstract the target sounds, the harder it is to stick with. Instead of "accumulate" it is worthwhile to put a clear plan: to postpone such and such amount from each salary
No less popular is the idea that the promises made for the New Year promise nothing good. Constant pressure from all sides at work and at home is complemented by psychological pressure from the inside: every time one fails to act in accordance with the newly invented rules, the motivation becomes less and less, and the feeling of guilt grows. As we mentioned above, many goals have no immediate and critical impact on routine matters, and this is partly because most of the promises given to oneself are usually formulated too generally. Despite the fact that the most respected answer in the world of cinema to the question "who do you want to be when you grow up?" remains a "happy person", from a practical point of view, this is the worst motivation of all. The more abstract the target sounds, the harder it is to stick with. From time to time we will read different meanings, blaming ourselves for not fulfilling the infinity of variations that fall under the wording.
"Eat better." "Be kinder." "Save money". Our consciousness is ready to deceive ourselves endlessly, so you need to treat it as a cunning genie, leaving no room for tricks. Instead of “accumulating”, it is worthwhile to put a clear plan: to postpone such and such an amount from each salary - or rather to start a savings account and set up an automatic payment. Instead of “eating healthier,” eat three carrots, a pack of spinach and a handful of goji berries a week, and even better, set specific days and meals when they should get into your stomach. The scheme is very simple and implies that abstractions should be excluded as much as possible, and all goals should be broken down into extremely small and detailed tasks.
Many of these tasks are in fact new useful habits that we can not develop. Our behavior in principle is largely a set of habits that our day falls under: from how and when we get up to what and how we choose in the store. We program our actions, but consciously it is always more difficult to do this, since we are already at the mercy of a mastered subconscious scheme. In addition to the fact that for every new habit like a 5-minute cleaning in the kitchen in the morning it is worth making the most detailed plan and be sure to assign it a specific time during the day, month or week, it is worthwhile to introduce it into your life as slowly as possible. So slowly that if your goal is to do something for a certain amount of time, then even this time should be made minimal.
The gradual introduction of the load is a normal technique, familiar to anyone who has been involved in any kind of sport or just physical activity. It makes no sense to dramatically load unprepared muscles and ligaments, you first need a warm-up and gradual adaptation. Psychologically, the process occurs in a similar way, so that in order to truly acquire a good habit, you need to start small and very measured, if you wish and need to introduce a new one or increase the volume of the old only when the new habit becomes as obvious and natural as brushing your teeth. before bedtime. Radical and momentary changes look beautiful, but they motivate a very limited amount of time: very soon you will get tired of spending all your energy on maintaining a new and alien routine and slip into the usual old rhythm. In order to develop a habit, according to popular theory, it is necessary to spend at least 10 weeks on its regular repetition - agree, this frees you from feeling guilty when you did not become a superman by January 2?
It is important to understand why you need these or other changes, decide whether you really want them, and take responsibility for their implementation.
A good life hack is to underestimate yourself. It sounds provocative, but in fact it means that if you know the excessive perfectionism and the habit of making a lot more than you can bite off, then you should make a conscious effort to underestimate the quantity and quality of goals. This does not mean that you need to exchange something cool for something simple and easy, but not very necessary, but rather that it is worthwhile to approach the preparation of tasks with the utmost honesty. The formulation of tasks is a very personal and individual thing, to which many approach for reasons not of personal benefit, but of some "necessary." Focusing on your friends or heroes is inherently not flawed, but it is harmful to try to apply other people's goals to your life solely for reasons of envy or blind imitation. It is very important to understand why you need these or other changes, decide whether you really want them, and take responsibility for them.
Often, guides on how to keep promises made to themselves in the New Year are advised to tell about them to people around, to retreat from them under the public eye of condemnation was harder, but there are some pitfalls here. Except for yourself, no one is able to make a positive change in your habits, so you should not shift responsibility for their implementation to others - just like you should not link their direct implementation with the behavior of others. If in 2015 you decided to go jogging on Mondays and Thursdays at seven in the morning, do not try to incite your friend to the exact same decision. As soon as her plans change, it will be more difficult for you to fulfill your goal and the absence of a friend will become an excuse for not doing anything.
Public approval for doing something is fine, but condemnation is never an effective motivation. Even if you have not told anyone anything, the main thing is not to forget to praise yourself. Any new achievement is on par with the previous ones, and they are all the same in that you were able to achieve them - so praise yourself and do not downplay it, no matter how small it may seem. People who set small goals achieve more personal success, and the more positive experience in achieving goals, the higher the probability of a positive result in the future.
A clear formulation of the plan will help those who love and know how to make lists, or feel that the tasks that have been written in advance will help them better organize their lives. Maximum visualization and detailing of the process and gradual positive changes that will occur with you, allows you to visually see why all this is necessary, and to remain motivated by all means. Imagine how your body will change if you add a healthy product to your diet or, conversely, eliminate a harmful one.
No matter how you plan, remember that some tasks are inevitably doomed to failure, but it's not scary. Failure is exactly the same part of the process, and do not be afraid of it. Nothing works out perfectly smoothly, as if on a thumb, because this "thumb" is not there yet. In advance, you need to prepare yourself for the fact that not everything will go according to plan, and decide that defeats will not be a reason to stop, but only a small obstacle or obstacle that you will eventually overcome. You can even try to anticipate potential punctures and try to avoid them. So, if you know that on some day you definitely don’t want to go to work by bicycle, because you will be too sleepy, try not to go to bed late to give yourself a break in advance and not retreat from the task. In the same measure, it is worthwhile to approach matters that cease to like over time. Sometimes we decide to do something that turns out to be not at all the way we imagined - in no case should we leave ourselves without the opportunity to admit defeat, because this is also part of invaluable experience.
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