A quick note about setting goals

A lot of people, and I do mean a LOT of people (I googled "making goals and keeping them" and I got about 115,000,000 results), have spent a lot of time writing books, blogs, aritcles, etc. about not just the importance of setting goals, but tips and tricks for keeping/reaching them, and common reasons why people so often fail to reach/keep their goals.

Which just means that I don't actually have to waste a lot of my time figuring all of that out.

In the course of my research about how to effectively set and reach my ultimate weight-loss goal (Weigh 120 lbs) I came across a few helpful links (random selection from the top 10 results):

• Goals: Making and Achieving Them
• Do You Make These 9 Mistakes When You Set Goals?
• Really Simple Goal Setting

From which I gained the following tips and tricks:

1. Pick ONE Meaningful To You Goal. DONE. Weigh 120 lbs.
2. Write it down. DONE. (See above... twice!!)
3. Have a plan. Create small, specific, measurable, PRESENT sub-goals that can be accomplished daily, monthly, etc. Set Deadlines. In Progress.
4. Review previous failures. DONE. (See previous blog entries from this month)
5. Have a positive daily mantra of 2-5 words (in the Present), repeat it out loud.
• I am eating healthy today
• I am exercising today
6. Keep track of progress every day. Working on it.
7. Make the Time. YIKES!!!
8. Be Firm Yet Flexible. All joking aside, this one scares me. If I'm too flexible, I'll let myself continue on as before with negative progress being made. If I'm too firm, I'll just throw in the towel once and for all. Both of which have the result of my clothing increasing in size, which is just annoying. And depressing.
9. Just Do It! In Progress - details upcoming in another post.

The biggest thing I learnt from the articles above is the following:

The goals you think about and write down have to be in present tense too. Not: I will run for 20 minutes three times a week. You have to write: I run for 20 minutes three times a week.

Why? Well, your subconscious mind needs clear direction of what is to be achieved. If you put your goal in an “I will…” form you mind will always strive to bring the goal of running into your life sometime in the future. It will always be out of reach. To actually bring the goal into your life, into the present moment, you have to write it down in present tense.

That actually answers a lot of my questions about why I am unable to meet this particular goal of mine. I ALWAYS think in the future tense about it, and so I never get there. Who'd a thunk it?

That quote, by the way, is copied directly from the blog entry "Do You Make These 9 Mistakes When You Make Goals?" Including the small grammatical error.

... which does not imply that my blog entries are completely free of grammatical errors...