The Integra Blog

Goal Setting - How To Keep Flexible Goals

Most of the time when we look up ‘how to set goals’ we always come across the S.M.A.R.T. principles, ‘think big’, ‘10 step process to achieve the life / body / etc you want’ or other equally useful tips for achieving the end result.

We don’t often see information about the actual process of working towards your goals and how your approach can enhance or diminish your health, wellness, performance. Your fitness, sport and lifestyle choices should be improving your life, they should not increasing the amount of stressors you have to deal with, bringing up food and body fears and introducing negative regimes into your life.

Several years ago I came across a book by Anat Baniel called Move Into Life. This book fitted well within the spectrum of exercise, understanding of neuroscience and the philosophy we have at Integra. It solidified some of our thoughts about movement and the capacity to positively affect your life - it isn’t just about ‘2 more reps’.

There is a section in this book called Flexible Goals, which we have below. I would highly recommend getting Anat’s book as there are many gems within this book about life, fitness and vitality: http://amzn.to/ldPc3J

I hope you enjoy this piece - Michael

Flexible Goals - Anat Baniel

It is important to have goals in our lives, but they can either enhance or diminish our vitality, depending on how we pursue them. The ‘stuckness’, or resistance to change, and being shut down that we sometimes associate with diminished vitality can be traced to the way we manage or goals.

“Go for it!” embodies the way most people pursue a goal. For so many of us, this slogan implies that we should try to reach the goal right now, by the fastest, shortest possible route, demonstrating to ourselves and others that we can go after what we want and get it immediately, if not sooner.

We look for the shortest and easiest path to our goal, avoiding anything that doesn’t seem to immediately contribute to our success. What promised to be a shortcut often isn’t, leading to disappointment and discouragement. This certainly doesn’t do much for our vitality and may kill enthusiasm for picking ourselves up and pursuing our goals in more enlightened ways.

While holding goals more loosely can seem indirect, wrong, off target, or too slow. But this method can, having a more flexible attitude to your goals can assist in your own vitality, while enduring you stay on a path surer towards your goals.

Steps for holding your goals loosely:

• 1 - Identify - name and describe in some detail something that you want, or a way you want to be, or an outcome you would like
• 2 - Create a process - remember that achieving your goal is a process that you play an active role in. Know that your goal can take an undisclosed amount of time, unless that goal is really simple (perhaps something you have already done and does not call for change). Take your time to allow your brain to feel, create, investigate and invent.
• 3 - Wonder - remember, until you reach your goal, you cannot know exactly how you will get there or what the experience of achieving that goal will be. Always leave room for the new to occur, in this way you will avoid falling back on existing rigid patterns of behaviour.
• 4 - Back off - always put process ahead of outcome. Rushing to achieve the outcome, trying to reach too far ahead of yourself, often creates discomfort or injury. If you try too hard, too fast, too big, or too soon, you risk learning limitations that may lead you to give up before you accomplish your goal - and will deplete you of energy and vitality.
• 5 - Play - on the way to your new accomplishment, be like a child: play, let your path meander in different directions to what may seem like a waste of time. Your brain will thrive with all the new information it gets, all the while discovering new possibilities for you, some of which may catapult you to your goal in unexpected ways.
• 6 - Be flexible - As your path unfolds, you might want to adjust your goal, or change it altogether.
• 7 - Fine tune - make the goal truly yours. Fine tune it as your progress towards your goal, always asking if it is what you really want.
• 8 - Let go - Do not try to control the outcome. When we try to control the outcome, things begin to go awry. The brain needs freedom to create and integrate billions of bits of information, this is how we form the new. Instead of trying to control the outcome, bring your attention to the process. This way, you gain the control to choose what to do and how to do it at any given moment.
• 9 - Be wrong - allow yourself lots of mistakes, embrace them. Mistakes create a treasure trove of information and opportunity for your brain and yourself to discover a new way to reach your goal.
• 10 - Be free - Ask yourself: who is running the show? Are you making the best use of your human advantage, taking your time to explore and discover? Or is your automatic, fear-based, unconscious self controlling your choices and actions?

From the book: Move Into Life, by Anat Baniel