Today is Day 34 of the 90-Day Challenge. I have set 4 goals that I want to accomplish in 90 days:
- Publish 2 e-books. I am still making slow, but steady progress on my first e-book, but I have only been working on it a half hour each morning. This certainly won’t get me to my goal. I need to dedicate several large blocks of focused time to work on this.
- Have a 34-inch waist. I was better this week than the previous two weeks in terms of my diet. I didn’t go near the evil 25-cent vending machines at work, and I didn’t buy any fast food. I didn’t exercise. In fact, my back hurt much more this week. Still, I lost a few pounds this week just from eating better.
- Eliminate 100% of the clutter in my home. I pretty much just maintained the progress that I made so far.
- Go on at least 1 date. I did nothing except browse some of the matches that are automatically e-mailed to me by Match.com and Yahoo Personals.
I am obviously not excited about the effort that I have been putting in, but I guess that I shouldn’t be surprised at how challenging this 90-Day Challenge is. After all, I have set some challenging goals for myself on top of working overtime at a very stressful job and on top of writing, maintaining, and improving this blog. I am actually debating whether or not I should just cut back and focus more. Anyway, I at least feel like I’m still making progress, even if it is slower than I would prefer.
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Some progress is better than no progress. I wonder about the effectiveness of setting “big hairy audacious” goals versus setting more achievable goals. On one hand, getting only halfway to a BHAG in a set time could be great progress, but you have to have the mentality that your “failure” was OK. You might even fail MOST such goals, but be making good progress. But is it demoralizing to “fail” so much?
Contrast that with setting more achievable goals and succeeding at most of them. Even if this approach has you pushing less forcefully, and possibly making a bit less progress than the BHAG approach, it may create more positive feelings due to the success factor. Ultimately, the approach that is best is the one that you will stick with and WANT to stick with long term.
Just some spur-of-the-moment thoughts. I think my personality type would prefer the achievable goal approach, although there may be some fear of failure lurking there that is counterproductive in some ways.
On the topic of achievable goals, here is a mini-challenge for you. One area where I happen to do very well, consistently, is exercise. A suggestion: don’t treat the exercise as having to come up with a well-thought-out, rational approach to accomplishing certain set fitness goals, etc. That’s a great approach, but can be daunting and keep you from stepping up to do it.
The weather is warming up – just go for a walk. Moderate pace, 30 minutes or so. Do it once or twice this week and then next week’s status will have progress on the exercise front. You can be brainstorming for your e-book or something while walking.
A while back I had knee surgery and when I was recovering from that I was gaining some weight. Once I got the cast off I was still limping a bit but I used mid-paced walking, and only that, to reverse the weight gain and get back to my “normal” pre-operation weight (I walked about 4 times a week before or after dinner). Walking can be very effective.
Good luck!
progmtl,
I think temperament does play a role in the types of goals you should set for yourself. For some people, setting a goal with a low probability of success is a huge demotivator.
I think my current problem is more about fatigue and burnout. My day job is extraordinarily stressful, and it is wearing on me. I may end up taking a step back and focusing a little more. I will see how it goes.
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