Excel Training & Consulting

If you are asking the question: I want to create beneficial, long lasting change, but where do I begin? Then this is the advice for you!

1. Have a Plan

It’s easier to get what you want if you have a target. Write down your goals. Brainstorm them first – both short and long term goals. When you edit your goals notice if they fall into the important categories of life such as health, finances, relationships, education, career and recreation. Is there a balance of goals in these areas? Integrate your goals into your everyday life. Goal setting is really nothing more than being conscious of the important areas of your life that aren’t working too well and taking some deliberate steps to improve these areas. Work out how you’re going to achieve these goals. What are the steps you can make in the short term? Studies reveal only a small number of people actually set goals and an even smaller number actaully follow through. An interesting study at Princeton University starting in 1953 revealed the 3% of the graduating class who actually did set goals had the combined wealth of the other 97% when a follow-up study was performed 20 years later. Make goal setting an enjoyable process, not a chore.

2. Know your Motivation Strategy

People are motivated in different ways. Some of these ways include:

I. Intrinsic motivation. This person is motivated from within. They’ll typically have strict internal rules. If they set their alarm to get up and exercise at 6.30AM, they’ll do it. They don’t need anybody to go with them. Their internal rules are strict.

II. Extrinsic motivation. This person is motivated externally. They’ll more likely set their alarm to get up and exercise at 6.30AM if they’re going to be exercising with somebody else.

III. Pleasure. This person attaches more pleasure than pain to achieving their goal e.g. they’ll be more motivated by the  good feeling of fitting into certain clothes than the bad feeling of not fitting into them .

IV. Pain. This person is more motivated by pain than pleasure eg seeing

themselves looking overweight in a photograph or to avoid health problems.

To be intrinsically motivated and to be motivtaed by pleasure is the ideal way to be motivated. Most of us aren't like this however, so if you're motivated extrinsically organise to do something with a friend, or use a coach, family member or friend to get you going.

3. Understand & Utilise your Mind

The mind is a powerful tool that is often neglected when it comes to achieving goals or making changes.  Some of the common ways the mind is used in this area include visualisation and affirmations.

Your mind has a conscious and a unconscious component. In order to avoid self-sabotage it is important to gain rapport between the conscious and unconscious. The unconscious mind is the more powerful part of the mind, containing beliefs, memories, emotions, habits and is responsible for approximately 80% of our behaviour.

4. Remain Optimistic

Long term studies reveal that having an optimistic attitude will provide you with a number of benefits in many departments of life. Optimism works! The true test of optimism is when times are tough. How are you going to react to the difficult times? The worst place to be is having the attitude of ‘I’ve tried everything and nothing works for me’.The optimist is flexible, lateral, creative and resilient.

5. Expect the Unexpected

Life will test you! It is impossible to control everything that happens in life and occasionally the best laid plans go awry. Sometimes you might have momentum towards achieving a goal and you’re thrown off track.

When setting a goal have a contingency plan. This plan should ideally be about what will get you going again e.g .look at the whys or the reasons of your goal, or use your motivation strategy, or use your mind in a resourceful way.

6. Be Flexible

If you’re trying to change and you aren’t getting the results you desire adjust your actions and behaviour. Brainstorm what you could do differently.

The more versatile you are in your behaviour the more likely you’ll either make that change or achieve that goal.

7. Take Small Steps

This is a simple but powerful strategy! Goals are achieved one step at a time. If your goal is to learn a language focus on the first 10 words, if your goal is to begin exercising aim to walk for 10 minutes, if your goal is to lose weight aim to eat just 5% less than normal.The opposite to taking small steps is overwhelm and this typically leads to non-action. In 2004 a good friend of mine walked across Australia, lugging his 70kg cart along the 4200km trek. His strategy was to break down the massive journey into 90 minute increments, then to take a break. In the break he would rest, revive, reassess and start again. How could you utilise this strategy? Could you aim to lose the first kilo instead of focusing on the 20kg, walk around the block before overwhelming yourself about the 40 minute sessions, write the first page of the book or clean one drawer in the bedroom?

8. Link Enjoyment to the Change/Process

Too often making a change or achieving a goal is linked to hard work, effort and pain, so every now and again reward yourself for your effort e.g. if you followed your fitness plan for 2 weeks get a massage or go the movies, or at the very least pat yourself on the back for your efforts. Improve how you communicate to yourself. Too often we are hard and unforgiving of ourselves. This typically doesn’t work. Get your brain to associate enjoyment to making the change or performing the behaviour that you want.