I recently wrote about goals and happiness.
I shared why I set goals, how having a clear understanding of what I want helps me, and some of the ways I achieve that.
Most of that was about longer-term goal setting. Because that’s what I did during my 10 day winter break at the end of 2018 and the start of 2019. And so that’s what I reflected on at the end of January.
Now, I want to share what I’m doing to break those goals down. Chunking them into what I want to achieve on a daily and weekly basis. I’m building weekly routines and monthly habits. I’ve been trying out different ways of reviewing and reflecting. Usually asking myself a bunch of questions and answer them in my journal.
Daily reflections
- 🏫 What did I learn today?
- 🤔 What am I curious about?
- 🌅 What could I do today to get closer to achieving my goals? and/or
- 🌇 What have I done today to make progress towards my goals?
- 💕 Things I did to be kind to myself today
I have an achievements list for the whole year. So, anything outstanding that emerges in my daily reflections, I copy over to that list too.
Working out a way forward for my weekly review
I decided to use the GROW coaching model for setting this week’s goals. Because I already knew what I wanted to aim for, and I wanted to give myself my best chance of achieving it.
I started by searching online for “grow model questions” and I was ready to go.
So far, so great.
Why even bother with goals tho?
One of my objectives is to eat better, and one of the ways I’m measuring that is with Dr Greger’s Daily Dozen.
Last week my goals were to eat daily on average:
- 2 servings of beans
- 15 servings of my Daily Dozen
(Which equates to at least 14 servings of beans and at least 105 servings of my Daily Dozen for the week, respectively.)
Having a vague ambition to eat more of my Daily Dozen helped me eat better, but I reached a plateau.
Because there are some foods I find easier to eat. For example, I love wholegrains. It’s easy for me to snack on bread when I’m low energy. Whereas, even though I love beans, I find it difficult to eat enough of them. So, I decided to focus my attention there and develop a habit of eating more beans.
It worked so well.
- 📈 16 servings of beans, week commencing 11/02, compared to 6 servings, the previous week
- 📈 125 servings of daily dozen, week commencing 11/02, compared to 100 servings, the previous week
Boom.
What goals to try next?
I decided to tackle the next food area that would benefit my health and that I find challenging: Fruit.
My potential goal:
Eat 4 servings of fruit daily (including 1 serving of berries daily). Eek! How?!
Because I want to be healthier. Because hayfever season has started for me, and plants help me manage and control my allergic reaction to pollen. (Seriously!)
So, back to the GROW model:
Goal, Current Reality, Obstacles & Options, Will & Way Forward
Let’s use that list of questions to work out if this is a good goal for me… 🙂
Let’s clarify the goal…
Goal: Coaching starts with establishing a goal. It could be a performance goal, a development goal, a problem to solve, a decision to make, or a goal for the coaching session.
Most powerful question for clarifying goals
- What outcome would be ideal?
*What outcome would be ideal?* was such a powerful question for me. It helped me think more about where my goal for this week fits into what I want for the next month and a half. It enabled me to understand what’s important for me in travel I have coming up. And I started making a more detailed plan because of it too. I feel so much better about my travel and fluctuating energy levels now.
Meanwhile, I had in my head something a good friend said to me earlier today. “Please let me know the best things we can do [during this time] to make it relaxing and great for you.” 💞 My heart.
I spent 25 minutes responding to these questions. And I wrote more for *What outcome would be ideal?* than for all the other questions combined.
My goal, clarified:
Eat 35 servings of fruit next week (5 daily on average), including 1 serving of berries daily. Monday, 25 Feb – Sunday, 2 March.
Because ambitious healthy eating goals are more effective (when they’re not unrealistic).
Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely? Yes. Next!
Let’s understand the current reality…
Reality: Gain awareness of the current situation–what’s going on, the context and the magnitude…
Achievement unlocked: Clarification of reality accomplished.
Lots of questions made a big difference here. I can imagine using these as invitations with 10×10 writing. (For 10×10, you have 30 seconds to write as much as you can in response to an invitation or prompt. Then, you move on to the next and go again for each invitation. You can vary this activity for as many, or as few, invitations as you like.)
Questions I found most useful for understanding reality:
- What’s happening now (what, who, when, and how often)?
- What’s the effect or result of what’s happening now?
- Have you already taken any steps towards your goal?
- How would you describe what you did?
- Where are you now in relation to your goal, on a scale of one to ten?
- What’s contributed to your success so far?
- What’s working well right now?
- What’s required of you?
- Why haven’t you reached your goal already?
- How severe/serious/urgent is the situation, on a scale of one to ten?
Let’s look at options
Obstacles & Options: Possibilities for reaching goals…
I’d like to improve this section. I want to include questions about what obstacles could occur, and get at ways of overcoming those. Actually, the article I was using included obstacles & overcoming them in Will & Way Forward. So, that’s alright then.
Selection that would be great as invitations for 10×10 writing here too.
Questions I found most useful for looking at options:
- What are your options?
- What do you think you need to do next?
- What could be your first step?
- Who else might be able to help?
- What would happen if you did nothing?
- What has worked for you already?
- How could you do more of that?
- What advice would you give to a friend about that?
- Which option do you feel ready to act on?
- What could you do differently?
Let’s look at the way forward
Will, or Way Forward: Check for commitment and help establish a clear action plan for next steps…
Questions I found most useful for looking at the way forward
- What do you think you need to do right now?
- Tell me how you’re going to do that.
- Is there anything else you can do?
- What obstacles are getting in the way of success? (I’d put this in Options & Obstacles, not Will & Way Forward; but either way, glad this question is in the list)
- When are you going to start?
- How will you know you have been successful?
- What are three actions you can take that would make sense this week? (love this question!)
But, is it working?
Yes!
- 📈 21 servings of fruit, first four days of week commencing 25/02, compared to 11 servings, first four days of the previous week
- 📈 89 servings of daily dozen, first four days of week commencing 25/02, compared to 74 servings, first four days of the previous week
Summary, and what’s next?
I can imagine doing a much shorter version of these GROW model questions using a modified version of Spiral Journal:
Goal:
- What outcome would be ideal?
Reality:
- What’s happening now (what, who, when, and how often)?
- either, What’s the impact of that?
- or, How severe/serious/urgent is the situation?
Options:
- What do you think you need to do next? What could be your first step?
- What has worked for you already?
- either, How could you do more of that?
- or, What could you do differently?
- What advice would you give to a friend in a similar situation? Who else might be able to help?
Way forward:
- What do you think you need to do right now?
- How are you going to do that?
- Is there anything else you can do?
- What obstacles are getting in the way of success?
- When are you going to start?
- How will you know you have been successful?
- What are three actions you can take that would make sense this week?
Now it’s time for me to reflect and review February and set my objectives for March.
And remember…