Archive for goal setting

Jun
5

How Lucky Are You?

by Laura Johnson

Growing up, I did not consider myself to be a lucky person. I often heard my father saying things like “Everything I buy breaks. I have the worst luck.” When I was nine, I won a holiday raffle at school for a plastic candy cane filled with M&Ms. I was sick that day, the only day I missed that year, and the teacher re-drew names. For years, I saw this as proof I wasn’t lucky. I started to believe, just like my dad, that I had the worst luck and became anxious about trying new things. I expected the worst to happen and my anxious behavior and negative thinking often ensured it did. When things went well, I’d find a reason why it was an exception and when things went poorly, I told myself, “That’s okay. I didn’t expect it to work out anyway.”

How Lucky Are You?One day when I was in my early 20s, I read a story by a manager explaining his career success. Here’s what I recall him writing:

“I used to work late every night. One evening, I was in the elevator and the CEO got on. We chatted and he asked me, ‘Haven’t I seen you here before?’ I responded, ‘You might have, sir. I’ve been here every day and evening since I started this job two years ago.’ He said, ‘Son, why don’t you come by my office in the morning.’ The next day,he assigned a tough job to me, one he said needed someone who could work hard and be available to clients at all hours. I gladly accepted and my career progressed over the next 20 years.”

This prompted an “aha” moment. I became inspired to start turning my luck around through hard work and, over time, letting go of my negative inner voice.

Working Hard to Get Lucky

It’s easy to think some people are luckier than others and just “have all the luck” or “are in the right place at the right time.” However, most successful people work hard and, slowly but surely, they encounter and capitalize on lucky opportunities.

Some people do have natural talent and you might think that’s why they are lucky. Have you ever told yourself, “Oh, that person is so lucky but I’ll never amount to anything because I don’t have his or her talent”? It’s easy to fall into this thinking trap when we watch seemingly overnight sensations on reality TV. On the other hand, is that the exception rather than the rule? For example, Michael Grimm, recent winner on “America’s Got Talent,” started working in local bars at age 12. Eighteen years later, it appears he “just got lucky.”

Research has found it takes hard work and deliberate practice, not just natural talent, to achieve great success. Deliberate practice takes your abilities to the next level with disciplined and frequent practice focused on achieving clearly defined objectives, developing specific skills and getting feedback on your performance. Research indicates it takes 10,000 hours, or 10 years on average, of deliberate practice to become an expert in any field.

Your Thinking Can Improve Your Luck

There’s another way to improve your luck. That’s to harness the power of your thinking, attitudes and beliefs about yourself and the world to start noticing opportunities, listening to your intuition, expecting good things to happen and turning bad luck into good luck.

Richard Wiseman’s research, described in The Luck Factor and a Reader’s Digest article, identified four factors common among lucky people. They tend to:

  • Be skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities: Lucky people are relaxed and open to new experiences, allowing them to notice what is present. In contrast, when you are anxious, you may get tunnel vision and miss opportunities.
  • Make good decisions by listening to their intuition: Lucky people listen to their inner voice and avoid second guessing themselves too much or looking back on their decisions with regret.
  • Create self-fulfilling prophecies with positive expectations: Lucky people expect good things and have an optimistic explanatory style. When bad things happen, lucky people tend to see the cause as external, believe the bad event will end and don’t let it affect too many parts of their life.
  • Adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good: Lucky people see the positive side of bad events. Instead of telling themselves, “This is awful,” and falling into despair, lucky people focus on how things could have been worse and are thankful for their good luck.

 

Note: This article originally appeared on MentalHelp.net on September 27, 2010.

0 Categories : Uncategorized
May
5

Are You Ready to Change?

by Laura Johnson

Stage of Change and Motivational InterviewingWhen you show up for therapy, it’s natural to assume you are ready to change, right? Otherwise, why would you be paying a therapist to help you work toward a solution? However, sometimes after a few sessions, you may find your motivation is uneven and you aren’t sure you want to do the work involved in getting better and changing your life. That’s where an innovative style of counseling called Motivational Interviewing can help you move through the stages of change.

Stages of Change

If you are wondering what’s going on and asking yourself, “Why aren’t I doing the things I know I need to do to get better?,” then you are perfectly normal. Research indicates there are five stages that indicate readiness for change and most people move between them when working on achieving any goal. The five stages of change are:

  1. Pre-contemplation – you have no intention to take action and may be uninformed about the consequences of your behavior. This is also called “denial” in ordinary language.
  2. Contemplation – you become aware a problem exists and intend to change but have not yet made a commitment to take action.
  3. Preparation – you are intending to take action in the next month, may have already tried to change, and may have a plan of action in mind.
  4. Action – you are beginning to make overt behavioral or environmental changes.
  5. Maintenance – you are working to prevent relapse and maintain gains.

Strategies Need to Match the Stage You Are In

Most clients, when they first see a professional, are not at the action stage. About 80% are in one of the first three stages and only 20% are in action or maintenance. Resistance to change arises when you and the therapist assume you are in the action stage and start making an action plan to get things done when, in reality, you are not there yet. Instead, it would be better to take a less aggressive approach, acknowledge what stage you are in, and modify homework assignments accordingly.

What Can You Do to Increase Your Readiness to Change?

There is a counseling approach called Motivational Interviewing (MI) that is defined as a “client-centered, directive method for enhancing intrinsic motivation to change by exploring and resolving ambivalence.” In Motivational Interviewing, ambivalence is regarded as a normal part of the change process. MI can increase motivation in the early stages by helping you understand why you want to change. MI can then be followed with cognitive behavioral exercises in the action stage to help you acquire the skills for change.

Principles of Motivational Interviewing

One of the major goals of MI is to help you start thinking about and talking about change before taking action. Talking about your desire and intent to change can be a powerful predictor of change. There are 4 major strategies that the counselor uses to encourage change talk:

  1. Expressing empathy – using reflective listening to convey understanding of your message.
  2. Developing discrepancy – between the your most deeply held values and the current behavior you want to change.
  3. Supporting self-efficacy – building confidence that change is possible.
  4. Rolling with resistance – meeting resistance with reflection rather than confrontation.
Getting Started with the Process of Change

So even if you are not yet in the action stage, Motivational Interviewing can get you ready for change. If you are interested in reaching a goal this year, maybe the best way to do so is to start with Motivational Interviewing.

How to Get Help in Saratoga/San Jose

The Cognitive Behavior Therapy Center of Silicon Valley offers Motivational Interviewing as a precursor to engaging in action-oriented CBT. The Cognitive Behavior Therapy Center is located at 12961 Village Drive in Saratoga. We are just a 1/2 mile from Highway 85 and the Saratoga Avenue exit. You can contact us (408) 384-8404 for mrs information about how we can help you start the process of change.

0 Categories : Anxiety, Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Motivation
Mar
31

Be Good or Get Better?

by Laura Johnson

carrying computer up hillAre You Focused on Learning to Be The Best or Trying to Prove You Already Are?

“Be Good” goals are about proving yourself (being good). When you are striving to “be good,” you are focused on showing yourself and others that you are already completely competent. You are focused on the end result of your performance and showing everyone that you are already the best at whatever you are doing. Mistakes are awful because they contradict the image of yourself as perfect. In contrast, “Get Better” goals are about improving yourself (getting better). When you are focused on getting better, you are interested in learning and growth. You are okay with making mistakes because you know that you don’t know everything. Mistakes are seen as opportunities to learn.

“Being Good” Works When Times are Good

Wanting to “be good” is very motivating and can lead to excellent performance, provided that things don’t get too difficult, according to Heidi Halvorson PhD, author of Succeed. Unfortunately, she says, when the road gets rocky, people who are focused on proving themselves tend to conclude that they don’t have what it takes and give up too soon.

“Getting Better” is Better When You Face Challenges

When we focus on getting better, we take face difficulty with greater calm and use the experience from our learnings to fuel our improvement. Halvorson has found that people who pursue growth often turn in the best performances because they are more resilient in the face of challenges.

“Getting Better” Helps You Enjoy the Journey

sun over umbrellasWhen your goal is to get better rather than to be good, you tend to enjoy what you’re doing more and find it more interesting. In other words, you appreciate the journey as much as the destination, says Halvorson. You also engage in deeper, more meaningful processing of information and better planning for the future. You are even more likely to ask for help when you need it, and more likely to truly benefit from it.

“Getting Better” Reduces Anxiety and Depression

If your goals are more about self-growth than self-validation, you will be able to deal with depression and anxiety in more productive ways. Feeling bad will make you get up and take action to solve your problems, rather than just lie around and feel sorry for yourself. Not surprisingly,  you will be less depressed than other people who are constantly trying to prove they are capable and worthy, says Halvorson.

Try to Focus on “Getting Better”

The bottom line is, whenever possible, try to turn your goals from being good to getting better. Rather than complain about all the ways in which you, your job or your relationships aren’t perfect, focus on all the ways in which they are going well and can be improved. At work and at school, focus on expanding your skills and taking on new challenges rather than impressing everyone with how smart and knowledgeable you are. When your emphasis is on what there is to learn rather than what there is to prove, you will be a lot happier and will achieve a lot more.

Adapted from Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals by Heidi Halvorson PhD (2010).

0 Categories : Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Motivation
Jan
12

Smaller Goals for Bigger Results

by Laura Johnson

Baby Steps Can Lead You Down the Road of Success.

Happy soccer boy w goalSet smaller goals and get bigger results? This might seem counterintuitive to you. And if it does, you are not alone. We’re all used to hearing about stretch goals, and when you feel empowered, stretch goals are inspiring and motivating. But when you feel overwhelmed, stretch goals can create paralysis and result in procrastination. When you set your goals too high, you might find it overwhelming and too time consuming. You just give up or keep on changing your goals instead of slowly and steadily working through the baby steps to a bigger goal.

Setting small goals makes sense from a more-likely-to-succeed perspective. Baby steps help us manage the fear that keeps us from doing the tasks we dislike or that seem too hard. You feel more confident pursuing smaller goals because you know you are going to achieve them. So you do and this soon puts bigger goals within reach. Setting and reaching small goals sets up a positive snowball effect. Small goals will give you small successes and that will motivate you to continue.

Keep in mind that goal setting isn’t all about success – there will be setbacks. You need to anticipate failure (like gaining a pound after you’ve lost two), so you don’t end up getting derailed and quitting. This is why small goals are preferable because you can measure achievement and the setbacks don’t knock you down so harshly.

When you give up early, it’s likely your goals were too big in the first place. Most people never reach their biggest goals because they can’t stick to them in the beginning. The first 30 to 60 days are key to long term success. That is when you are more likely to put in the hard work to get to a new or different result. You need to put in twice the work in the beginning because you are starting a new habit and breaking an old one at the same time.

The key is to start small with baby steps, achieve some early wins and build your confidence to keep moving forward. When you set small goals, three powerful things happen:

  • You achieve the small goals on your list pretty quickly.
  • You see yourself making regular progress and this is reinforcing.
  • You gain the courage to pursue bigger goals and you keep on working.

Reaching a big goal involves conquering a series of smaller goals. If you’ve tried to reach big goals in the past and failed, don’t give up. Try re-starting this year with smaller goals using the following steps:

  1. Man climbing stepsDream big, execute small. Figure out what it is you want to accomplish. Pick something that is really important to you. Identify why you want to accomplish this goal and what benefits it will have for you. This might be a big long-term goal, but it can help get you started with setting your short-term, smaller goals.
  2. Break up your major goal into smaller, more manageable parts. You are more likely to make your dream come true this way. If your big goal is to walk/jog a half-marathon in September, break it down into baby steps. The small steps could be walk around the block three times this week, hike half a mile walk with my partner, jog one block, etc. Before you know it, you’ll be jogging around the high school track and feeling really good about yourself.
  3. Stay focused on the present. If your brain starts thinking about the big goal that is 6 months or a year into the future, you will start feeling overwhelmed and fearful or you may have negative thoughts that make you feel like giving up. Instead, use mindfulness to bring your brain back to the small goal that you can realistically achieve in the short-term. Remember, even the highest achievers started with small steps.
  4. Be positive. Say “I will” rather than “I won’t.” Negative goals make you feel deprived instead of making you feel good about your successes. Instead of saying, “I won’t eat chocolate,” tell yourself, “I will eat vegetables with dinner.”
  5. Make goals short term and specific. Most small goals can have a set deadline or at least a general timeframe. Specify exactly what you plan to do by tomorrow or next week. Say “I’m going to walk 15 minutes after dinner two evenings this week,” rather than “I’m going to exercise.”
  6. Measure and track. Use a calendar to track your progress in a visible way. Write down and check off every time you complete a small goal. At the end of the month, you will be surprised and proud at how much you got done.
  7. Be realistic. Set a realistic amount of small goals. Even small goals take time and effort. In order to achieve long-term success, you have to find small goals you can live with and incorporate into your daily schedule.
  8. Celebrate and reward yourself. Recognize each small victory. They are your building blocks for long-term success. Sometimes people don’t feel worthy of celebrating a small achievement. You might say, “That was no big deal,” or “It was too easy.” However, you are more likely to stay motivated if you think positive and recognize small successes.

Good luck reaching your goals this year. Make 2013 the year of small goals with big results.

0 Categories : Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Motivation