Happy New Year!

Welcome to the first day of the 7-Day “Transform Your Body, Transform Your Mind” Challenge! I’m happy you’re here with me!

New Year’s Day is the perfect day to tackle something new and life-changing. The air is filled with such hope and optimism, it’s like free energy and motivation. So, let’s ride the euphoria with a little dreaming and goal-setting!

Today, we’ll focus on the very first step of really productive, life-changing, stick-to-it goals: Outcome.

It may sound strange to start with the last step, but without knowing your target, you will waste time, energy, and precious motivation on tasks that get you nowhere.

The Peer Pressure of New Year’s Resolutions

Most people have a love-hate relationship with goals, especially New Year’s resolutions. They love the idea of them, but hate making them because they know, deep down or otherwise, that nothing will really change.

There’s a feeling of newness and universality when it comes to goals this time of year, and it’s easy to be swept away by the outpouring of goal-setting.

“Yeah, I need to lose weight, too.”

“I definitely need to get more organized.”

“I’m gonna start eating healthy.”

“I want to lose weight” is a common enough goal, but what does that even mean? Will you lose fat? Will you lose a limb? Legs are heavy, right?

And what if you gain muscle? Muscle weighs more than fat, will you feel bad about gaining muscle weight?

“I want to be healthy” is also a common goal, but what does healthy mean? What does healthy look like?

I know that we’ve heard or said other goals that were similarly vague. It’s no wonder that New Year’s Resolutions have a 90% failure rate. There’s no way you’d be set up for success with goals like that.

The problem is, that most goals don’t stick because they were made randomly or superficially, usually on the heels of hearing another person’s goal or resolution. And, they were made knowing full well that they weren’t going to be kept.

What’s worse: we usually make the goals because honestly? We really, really, really want to make those positive changes in our lives.

Making Goals That Stick: The First Step

When we make goals just to make them, it’s like we’re throwing spaghetti on the wall, wondering if anything will stick.

Instead of trying to make goals that everyone else is doing, or goals that you think you ought to have, try using these best practices as a guide:

Begin with the end in mind. The best way to find goals that stick, would be to think about the outcome you want. The more specific and detailed you can be, the better. I mean, you should be able to see, feel, hear, smell what your outcome will be.

For example, if you want to lose weight, you need to know what you want to look and feel like. You’ll need to think about what it takes to achieve and maintain that weight. You’ll need to envision what your new everyday will look like.

Write this all out on a piece of paper. Draw it out if you have the inclination.

Find your Why. Then, after you know the outcome you seek, you’ll need to find your reason. Why did you choose this outcome. Dig deep. The more it resonates with your core values the better. Why do you want this goal? Why now?

Write it out as detailed as you can. The more real your language, the more it sounds like you, the better! Use those visceral, gritty, juicy, delicious words that will excite you and get you going.

If this feels a little too frou-frou for you, here’s a little illustration. If I were to have a weight loss goal, which goal would have more staying power? This one:

“I need to be healthy, so I need to lose weight.”

or,

“The body I want is strong and healthy and never gets sick. I do this by giving it what it needs: good, whole foods and movement. I lift weights safely and effectively to meet the needs of my everyday life–like when I shop at the grocery store or process shipment for work or shovel snow in the driveway. I keep my body strong and healthy in order to serve my family, community, and world at a higher level. When I transform myself, I can transform my world.”

I think it’s clear that the second one has a more relevant Why that speaks to me in my language.

The more your Why resonates with your values, the more you can focus on your goal. Your Why will also dictate How you will achieve your goals. With a deeper emotional connection, the idea of “What should I do?” will start to take care of itself.

With a big enough Why, your How will fall in place.

Tomorrow, we will dive deeper into creating better task lists. For now, I want you to ask yourself: “What is the outcome I want?” 

The more you ask yourself this question every day for any project or goal that comes your way, the more productive you will become in things that matter most to you.

Your Turn: Please share your insights in the comments below, or feel free to use the image to post on Instagram, Facebook, and/or Twitter with the hashtag #TransformIn2017.

Thanks for reading!

xoxo

Liza

PS

I will be moving to a self-hosted site soon, and I don’t know if I will be able to move my blog subscribers with me. So, I’m collecting email addresses just in case. I’d love it if you would enter in your name and email address just to let me know that you’d like to move over with me. If not, that’s cool! 🙂

PPS

If you wanted to follow along with my daily workouts, I’ve attached tomorrow’s workout below!

WORKOUT FOR MONDAY:

I chose to do body weight exercises for this week so that you will have no excuses to start right away! From warm up to smoothie, this should take about 15 minutes!

(Click HERE to get details and links to instructions/form tutorials!)

Let me know if you have any questions in the comments below, or you could also fill out this form!

Thank you and I’ll see you again tomorrow!