Small Goals are Better!
Raise your hand if you have tried to lose 30+ lbs., run a 10k out of nowhere, or get totally on top of your financial debt …. only to quickly get discouraged and go back to doing exactly what you were doing?
You are not alone, my friend.
Research tells us that by breaking goals down into smaller chunks, make them manageable in our minds and therefore, easier to achieve.
You may now say - well, I don’t want to lose just 10 lbs. If I say I’m going to lose 10 lbs., then I know I’ll stop at 10 and not reach 30. So, I’m going for the gold - I’m going for 30!
Is that true, though?
Setting smaller goals is low stakes. You can see a small goal. You envision it, you can imagine it, you can almost smell it. And also, if it’s a small goal and you hit a bump, it doesn’t feel like the end of the world. It’s a small goal and you have plenty of time to recover. Tomorrow will be more manageable and you will plan appropriately. Here we go, you’re back on track.! High stakes goals feel daunting to begin with and you may not be able to truly envision it. If you hit a bump on a huge goal, the consequences feel dire, like the goal was already big and now you’ve lost all this time. It’s never going to happen. Certainly, recovery is possible. It may well require more time, more help, and more mental and physical resources.
Consider those around you, your support network. Now imagine you know a healthy weight for you is about 30 lbs. lighter than you are currently. You decide to go for a 10lb. loss and assess. The pressure feels reduced. The goal feels manageable and attainable. You weigh daily, making sure to keep on track and you set yourself up for success each day. People who love you know that you are working towards a 10lb. loss and that’s great - because it’s doable to you and to others. Let’s face it - friends and family will find it much easier to support and cheer for you with the thought of a smaller goal than a big one. Consider that for a moment - the people around you. Many of us suffer from low self-efficacy when it comes to losing weight. We already doubt that we can so we may not foster tons of confidence in others that we can either. However, a smaller goal in itself can increase our self-efficacy and as we reach that goal our confidence and the confidence of others in us builds!
And guess what else? Research from the NIH shows that overall small losses amount to improvements in health measures. And as those small losses rack up to bigger losses, those health improvements become even greater.
What small goals do you want to set?