The Importance of Attainable Goals
Low expectations. High rewards.
Introduction
For the past 17 days, I’ve been drinking 80 ounces of water and walking 20 minutes at a 5% incline on a treadmill. It is my latest effort to restart my health journey and create habits that restore fitness and mindfulness while jumpstarting productivity. In selecting these two habits, however, I made sure to create something attainable. Instead of shooting for the ideal fitness workout plan, I purposefully set lower expectations in order to surpass them throughout this month and stay motivated.
Promoting Consistency
In the digital detox space as well as in the fitness world, I constantly see people set up inconsistent goals. Usually, it is the cadence (3 workouts per week) or the amount of time (reducing screen time) that gets the spotlight. Although these are important metrics, I argue that daily consistency and repeatability should be the top factors when setting a goal. At the beginning of the month, I knew I was capable of running 1-2 miles a day or even working out 3 times per week. However, I chose the 20 minutes on the treadmill because it was easy enough to repeat every day without skipping.
While I could have gone “harder,” the year 2022 has not been kind to my fitness. I had gained weight and never found the needed cadence to stay fit. Therefore, I regarded it as primordial to set up an attainable goal that could be done every day. The motivation of seeing green checkmarks every day on the calendar would keep me motivated to not skip my workout and show up at the gym. Thus, for the past 17 days, I’ve gone walking, and sometimes (10 days to be exact) I’ve stayed a bit longer to work out a specific muscle group. It has been rewarding to check off the goal and then surpass it by exercising further.
The lesson I’ve learned, moreover, is that showing up consistently for an attainable goal allows you to create motivation to go beyond it. Having seen my progress throughout this month, I am ready to continue with this challenge next month and keep gaining ground in my health journey.
Digital Habits and Accountability
In the digital department, I’ve gained some clarity as well. I believe many who are trying to undergo a complete lifestyle change into the basic phone modality often get trapped by the conveniences of smart devices. Let it be contactless payments, directions, or your favorite game, smart devices are hard to let go of because of that one app that makes life convenient. Therefore, in order to create an attainable digital goal, you must first “show up” every day and disown that convenience.
My guilty pleasure for smart devices is the LiChess app. I enjoy a good game of chess with online strangers and going up in ranking sometimes has sucked me into 1-2 hours of uninterrupted play. Yet, the satisfaction is usually at the expense of my family time or my reading time. Instead of playing over the web, I’ve set up the attainable goal of buying a portable chess board and going to my local chess club here in Denver. I will get the satisfaction of playing with strangers, and learning more about chess while reducing my online time to read and spend more time with my family.
Now, I am aware that a game is easier to delete while other conveniences like GPS, banking apps, etc. are in totally different categories. However, the principle of attainability still applies. If your desire is to reduce screen time, setting a daily attainable goal should be a priority. Maybe it is deleting the app or opting for an analog alternative, either way, it should be a daily activity or reminder to create motivation and success.
Lastly, sharing these habits with friends can be another source of motivation. While embarking on my health challenge this month, I’ve shared my habits via Habitify. My friends signed up and we are encouraging each other while seeing habit streaks, and cheering each other up. While I have not faltered this month, I have seen a couple of my friends get two days of red exes in a row. As soon as two days of consecutive misses happen, I send an encouraging text to my friends so they don’t give up on achieving their goals. Community is an essential part of building consistency and habits.
How To Create Attainable Goals
If you are thinking of creating attainable goals in digital, health, or other related areas, here are some tips:
Make it a daily task: Creating sporadic habits will not lead to attainability
Start slow and then build up: For this 1st month I set up 20 minutes on a treadmill, the next 3 months will be a 1-mile run, and then in January, I am going for a 5K every day.
Couple the goals with your lifestyle changes: Going to walk for a 20-minute walk at a 5 percent incline makes me want to drink water more, so the coupling technique has made my goals easier. I drink 40 ounces during the first part of my day because I had to walk and work out.
Create community: Let it be through an app or a daily phone call, whatever your goals are will be better in community. Share your goals with friends and build a better life with the people around you.
Set up a reward: If you stick to your goal every day, treat yourself once a month. I am going to go to Uchi, an upscale sushi place, at the end of the month. I’ll celebrate my walking every day and drinking water with a fancy meal! Don’t be afraid of setting up an expensive reward or something that you really want, if you show up every day and keep up with your goal, you deserve it!!!