Are you like us? Expert goal setters? We find ourselves dreaming BIG, which is a good thing, as we all need to imagine ourselves IN our goals to be successful. Now, are you also like us, in that your goals sometimes fall by the wayside after a momentous start? The little steps that get you from that dream to the finish line are often far less exciting than setting an exciting goal.
You’re not alone…. this is a human trait! We’re all in this together!
Sociologist and Author, Christine Carter, had some poignant advice on exactly why we do this and how to get whittle away at your goals in her latest Ted Talks.
“The truth is that our ability to follow through on our best intentions, to get into a new habit like exercise or to change our behavior in any way, really, doesn’t actually depend on the reasons we might do it or on the depth of our convictions that we should do so….
It depends on our willingness to be bad at our desired behavior.”
Christine boils it down to a simple fact, “the harder something is for us to do, the more motivation we need to do that thing”. Short on motivation? You’re also not alone there. Motivation is something that waxes and wanes, and until you have a solid habit, it seems that motivation is usually scarce. When you have to muster up the motivation, humans tend to just go the path of least resistance.
So according to Christine, in order to establish a new habit, you have to let yourself be bad at it. Boil that big goal down to the smallest possible goal you can, something that almost seems miniscule.
The idea here is to stop trying to be so good. But don’t take our word for it, we highly recommend clicking through and watching Christine’s 12 minute talk. And starting today, we’re going to let ourselves be bad.
Click the image below or HERE to view
Christine’s Ted Talk.
Published in The Limitless Voice, May 13, 2021.
Terry Kempfert Creative 