Seeking Change: Making it Stick! 6 Strategies to Help You Achieve your Goals

Seeking Change: Why Can’t I Make It Stick?! 6 Strategies to Help You Achieve your Goals

Hi, I’m Jay Tiegs, High Performance Coach, and I help people live a more productive and purpose driven life.

Have you ever set a goal or new habit and soon after you find yourself quitting? Why does this happen?  

How can we set a goal and stick to it while enjoying the process? 

Why can’t I make change stick??? Why is it when I have a big goal or dream and change behavior, I fall off momentum and I fall off the wagon? I want to be more kind to people, yet I struggle to change my behavior. I want to be fit and change my life style. I start in January with a New Year’s resolution and by February I have already quit. I want to save money for a trip or pay off a credit card and start only to fall short after a couple pay days. Why can’t I make the change stick?

I have been there.

I have struggled with being consistent with my nutrition. I LOVE to workout. Cycling, Running, Kayaking…. I also really enjoy beer, bar-b-que and pizza. I thought that because I worked out all the time, I could eat and drink whatever I wanted. Well, as I got into my 30’s, my blood pressure elevated to a point where I was prescribed medication and I knew that I had to make some changes. I know that when it comes to diet and nutrition there is an 80-20 rule to achieve results. 80% of your effort needs to be focused on nutrition and 20% will be the workout. I felt fit but didn’t look fit, I felt tired and lethargic in the afternoons, and I didn’t get the results that I wanted during races. When I was prescribed blood pressure medicine I had had enough. It worried me, as I was too young to be on high blood pressure medicine. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired so I decided to spend some time and actually became a student of nutrition. I became consistent with drinking a gallon of water, sticking to a nutrition plan, and exercising to a routine for an extended period of time. I surrounded myself with people who were healthy and knew how to meal prep. I began to feel really good and my energy level skyrocketed.   I found that when you are working out hard and not optimizing your nutrition, you can really wear yourself down. I got to a place where I started looking good AND feeling good. I realized quickly that I didn’t want to compromise how I felt.  

My results… well, at 42 years of age I am the healthiest I have ever been in my life. I no longer rely on energy drinks and coffee to get me through the afternoon. I now feel like I’m a 9/10. I can do more pullups than ever, and I feel more confident with my shirt off. I have come to realize, in order to make a change really stick, you have to evaluate who you are as a person. I am proud to report that I am no longer on high blood pressure medicine and won’t need it as long as I keep these healthy habits. 

I have enjoyed the learning process so much that I have been able to help many other people improve their health and wellness  and mindset by losing weight, improving their mobility, increase their energy, run faster and further. Through a process of identifying their “why”, identifying their habits, and ensuring their goals are in line with who they are as a person, they have been able to achieve success and do more than they thought they were capable.

Many people think that they are unable to start a new habit or achieve a goal due to a limiting belief. I know many people who have tried to learn an instrument, take a few classes, and then quit. “Well, I guess I’m not a music person”. I have also known people who have attempted to learn a new language and after some effort they quit. “I’m just not a language person”. You become what you tell yourself, You develop self-doubt and create limiting beliefs by labeling yourself. You are what you believe you are. 

The reason the change/habit doesn’t stick is because you are not in congruence with the change you seek. Change is easy when the task makes you feel alive as a person, something that gives you pride, and true to who you are. You have to evaluate the motivation and desire of the change you want.

There are often two reasons why change doesn’t stick: Lack of motivation and lack of attention. 

Let’s consider lack of motivation: People fool themselves into thinking they know what they want. You may like the idea of the goal, but you’re are way too casual about how they approach it. The change is something you know you should do or supposed to do, however, the real problem is that change you desire isn’t one that you really connect with at a deep level. It is not an AMBITION, a DESIRE, or an INTENTION. It is not in line with your PURPOSE. You feel that is something you have to do or should do rather than be emotionally connected or compelled to do. This particular problem is due to lack of motivation.

Now, let’s consider lack of attention: If the change doesn’t stick it’s because people don’t focus on it daily. It’s easy to get excited about a goal or making a change for a few days and then something comes along to distract you. You may write out the goal on a check-list or in your journal, and you may stick with it for a couple days, then the next distraction or idea pops into your life and you lose connection with the goal. This particular problem is due to lack of attention.

How do we solve this problem?

Here are 6 strategies to help you stick with your goal:

1. Write down the desired change/goal EVERYDAY. Journal it and write it in your planner first thing in the morning as part of your routine. What is the change and why do you want it? Do this every day until it becomes a habit. It takes approximately 21 days to develop a habit. A habit that you have to think about in order to do it. It takes another 300 days to turn into a mindless habit like brushing your teeth. 

2. Do something toward your goal EVERYDAY. Execute/schedule something each and every day toward that change. Schedule it, and do it. If you want to improve your health and fitness, then schedule and do the workout and eat a couple healthy meals.  If your goal is to be kinder to your significant other, then schedule the kind thing you are going to do or spend 15 minutes visualizing ways you can show up kinder. You must do this every single day until you condition your mind to want to do this regularly.

3. Measure progress of your goal EVERYDAY. At the end of the day, journal or write down the results. You close out the day thinking about it and you can see progress over time. Also, your intention before you go to bed is what you will think about the next day when you wake up. How well did I do it? Could I have done something better? Rate yourself 1 to 10. 1 = I sucked at it today. 10 = I knocked it out of the park. 

4. Share your goal with other people. When you make the proclamation of doing something, people will ask you about it, cheer you on, and you will be less likely to fall short because you know people are watching. It is a way of “burning the ships” and not having an easy out to quit. You will start to gain a feeling of momentum when people are cheering you on and you gain traction.

5.  Get a coach or an accountability partner. Pay someone to look at your goal with you, and help you evaluate, plan, and, advise you on how to move forward toward your goal. If you don’t have a coach, then get an accountability partner who will hold you accountable toward your goal. Accountability is incredibly powerful and it is what the highest performing people do.

6. Visualize achieving your goal. Make a vision board and look at it as a daily reminder of where you are going.  You can also close your eyes and meditate on the goal.  The highest performing people visualize the outcome as a way to stay inspired and motivate themselves.

Here are the most common mistakes when failing to meet a goal:

Being too general in your goal.

Seeking perfection.

Lacking realism.

Conflicting with your purpose or your mission of who you are.

Having someone else set goals for you or setting goals for others in which they do not want.

To avoid common pitfalls, use the SMART mnemonic criteria when evaluating a goal you want to achieve:

S: Specific. State what you will do and use an action word.

M: Measurable. Provide a way to measure the goal. Use metrics/data targets.

A: Achievable. Is it achievable within your capability? It must be attainable.

R: Relevant. It makes sense with who you are as a person. Aligns with your purpose.

T: Time-bound. Identify the moment in time when it will be accomplished. Have timeline for benchmarks and milestones.

I would love to hear strategies that you have used to help you stay consistent toward achieving your goals. Post below with a method you used to stay on track and goal you were able to achieve. Maybe your methodology could help someone else.

Also, if you are struggling with achieving your goals reach out to me and let me know how I can help.  We can set up a strategy session to plan, evaluate, and advise, and hold you accountable to achieving it.

I hope this serves you well.

-J

“Do Hard Things.”