Category: Personal Growth

Goal-setting is a very stressful activity, especially when it’s commonly associated with failure.

In the hope of avoiding disappointment, many personal growth writers advocate the SMART goal-setting approach.

SMART is capitalized not because I’m shouting at you or because I’m being sarcastic, but because it’s an acronym (although you can say it in a sarcastic tone throughout this article to make the article more amusing).

SMART stands for:

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Realistic (or Relevant)

Time-bound

I’m personally of the opinion that goal-setting doesn’t tend to work for different reasons, and it ultimately depends on your own circumstances, which is why you need to figure out what you’re struggling with, and find a solution for that.

Do you lack the confidence to pursue your goals?

Do you lack the tools?

Do you find goal-setting too overwhelming?

Are past failures weighing you down?

Do you identify with past failures and label yourself as a failure?

Do you keep putting yourself down through negative self-talk?

Do you find it difficult to come up with goals to pursue?

Are you surrounded by individuals who make personal change difficult?

Are you dealing with a crisis that’s draining your attention and energy?

My guess is that different readers will respond differently to the questions above.

Some questions will be more relevant than others.

Some questions will sting a little, and some will sting a lot.

But the SMART approach doesn’t take the complexity of goal-setting into consideration.

It somehow overlooks many of the challenges people face when it comes to achieving their goals.

It’s what I would consider a simplistic approach, and not a simple one.

Besides, should all goals be measurable? And are all goals time-bound?

Maybe these are the factors responsible for your struggles in the first place!

I know from personal experience that having a “time-bound” goal when it comes to weight-loss is a major reason for giving up on healthy living.

You want to lose X amount of kilos in Y number of days.

But when you don’t see it happening and your progress is too slow, you give up on your goal and return to your old, unhealthy ways.

You may experience better results if you were to drop the time limit and take each day as it comes.

You can focus on making your choices for the day the best choices possible to you, and allow the results to take care of themselves.

You may not meet a deadline, but do you really need a deadline? For every goal?

It certainly helps to take the SMART factors into consideration, but it’s also wise to look at each of your goals and think of all the factors you need to make it happen, and to be aware of the obstacles standing in your way.

If you think that one of the SMART factors doesn’t apply to one of your goals, don’t feel obliged to force your goals to fit into the SMART template.

That may not be the smartest thing to do.

Feeling out of control can cause chaos in every area of your life.

And while you’re struggling to fix the problems in one area, your efforts are compromised by all the other life areas that aren’t getting your attention and festering problems of their own.

But control isn’t an “all or nothing” proposition.

You can exercise a degree of control over your life and experience a semblance of balance, if you can’t give all your life areas the attention and care they deserve.

In the same way you can take small steps towards any of your goals, creating balance involves establishing a structure in your life, where you dedicate some time and effort to each of your seven life areas.

Knowing that you’re not ignoring any life area will help you feel confident in facing life’s challenges, as you’re able to see the big picture of your life and everything you care about.

It also allows you to appreciate and respect the circumstances you’re facing, without demanding that you have everything you want and giving up on what you can have right now.

In what ways can you make small adjustments to your schedule so that you are able to cater for all your life areas?

What possible activities can you combine so that you get to make progress in several areas at the same time?

Don’t go for anything drastic, and don’t lament the fact that things can’t be perfectly balanced right now.

Make the most you can with what you have available to you.

That’s always the best you can do.

One of the easiest ways you can identify whether you’re living by your values and in accordance with your true priorities is by looking at your schedule: Are you spending the most time on the things that matter most to you?

Do you say to yourself “family first” but rarely spend time with them? If so, then you know that your schedule (or your priorities) are in need of a few adjustments.

But before I explore this topic any further, I should make one point clear: This post isn’t about judging yourself.

I don’t want you reading this post and thinking to yourself that you’re a hypocrite, a bad husband, a terrible father, a lousy human being, or putting any other negative label on yourself.

If you do that, then you’re an idiot. 😛

I want you to simply notice if your schedule is a good reflection of your values, and if it isn’t, to look for ways you can make positive changes so that your life becomes an expression of your inner values.

There are 3 primary reasons for why your schedule may not reflect your values:

1- You don’t really value what you say you do: Your schedule is often an honest reflection of what you truly value. If things are left out of your schedule and you aren’t giving them much thought or attention, then that could be by (subconscious) design.

You simply don’t care about them.

Again, don’t judge yourself, especially by other people’s standards. Just because the people around you make a big deal about a particular cause or value doesn’t mean that you have to follow in their footsteps.

Ask yourself: “Why does this matter to me?” before you can create some room for it in your schedule.

2- You’re in Crisis Mode: When there’s something in your life that’s out of control or causing you to worry, then your schedule won’t be in the best shape.

Not because you don’t care about the other things that aren’t in your schedule, but because you’re struggling to deal with a crisis in your life, or lack the skills to create a healthy balance in your schedule.

When a stressful project makes an appearance in your life it’s very common for gym visits and family gatherings to go out the window.

Crises do need extra attention to resolve, but it’s also important to invest in the skills that help you handle crises better, or prevent them from happening in the first place.

Identify the troublesome areas in your life, and think of ways you can bring them under control so that they don’t push the important things out of your schedule.

3- You don’t know what it looks like in the wild: So, you want to spend time with your children? But what will you be doing? How will you spend your time with them?

If you don’t know what your values look like in real life, it’s only natural for you to spend your time doing the things that you’re familiar with.

You can never experience a “time vacuum”. If you don’t know what to do with your time, you will fill it with something, no matter how mundane or useless it is.

This reason can go unnoticed as you claim that you “don’t have the time” for romantic evenings, when the real reason is that you don’t know what a romantic evening looks like!

For all your values and priorities, ask yourself: “What will this look like in real life?”

Then look for ways you can create space for it in your schedule.

Christmas is a time where you might begin to reflect on your priorities and wonder why you’re not spending as much time with family as you would like.

It may even lead you to explore your spiritual values and the amount of attention you’re giving them.

Use this opportunity to reflect on how you can make changes to your schedule to better reflect your values.

And I wish you a merry Christmas. 🙂

The default approach to personal growth is to begin by working on your weaknesses, and searching for resources that will help you overcome them.

If you have issues with productivity, then the first thing you read up on is productivity.

In many ways this is a healthy attitude. Your problem areas are bottlenecks that restrict the amount of happiness and success you can experience in life.

But focusing solely on your weaknesses can be quite challenging, not to mention depressing.

When all you’re thinking about are the things you suck at, it’s easy to develop a negative self-image, where you dig a hole for yourself that’s very difficult to get out of.

Instead of giving your weaknesses all your attention, be fully aware of your strengths and the role they can play in your life.

They can be an enormous aid in helping you tackle your weaknesses.

I’ve put myself down on many occasions because I’m slow at getting work done. I always seem to get overwhelmed by the ideas I have that I can’t focus on a single task to work on.

I later realized that I’m great at explaining the big picture to others, identifying patterns and making connections. These are valuable skills that I can build on rather than ignore because I happen to be weak when it comes to dealing with details.

I can accept my weaknesses and work on them, but not to the exclusion of my strengths. To move my life forward, I need to celebrate my strengths and make the most out of them.

What are you good at? What do people come to you for? What do you find easy to do? What can you pick up on very quickly? What do you have most experience in?

How can you use your strengths to overcome your weaknesses?

When it comes to your New Year’s resolutions, don’t think only about overcoming your weaknesses, but resolve to make the most out of your strengths, and look for opportunities where they will be most useful and appreciated.

Have you ever went to bed thinking to yourself: “Where the hell did the day go?”

The hours flew by, but you didn’t manage to accomplish anything noteworthy?

That’s because you were running on autopilot and only snapped out of it at the end of the day.

But why does that happen?

And – more importantly – how can you avoid it from happening again?

Why You Shut Down

We live in a complex world. There’s a lot to learn and a lot to do.

And when we overlook our present limitations while setting high expectations, our mind enters Panic Mode.

“There’s so much to do and so little time!”

To protect your sanity and well-being, your mind searches for distractions to keep you occupied, without having to worry about the things that are causing you to panic.

Not the wisest of strategies, I know.

Your mind has the right intention, but applies the wrong solution.

That’s when conscious effort is needed to deal with panic.

How To Escape Panic Mode

The first thing to know about panic is that it’s a reflex. It’s a default response you have to life’s challenges.

You will most likely enter Panic Mode before you realize, and the last thing you want to do is panic about being in Panic Mode (a very common occurrence, I’m afraid).

Here are 7 steps you can take to escape Panic Mode and move towards a more sensible attitude to life:

1- Accept your situation: Panic contains an element of “this isn’t happening to me!” which means that you don’t accept things as they are. Begin by accepting your situation. Accept that you have a lot to do. Accept that things are the way they are, so you don’t have to resort to evasion or rejecting reality the way it is.

2- Be fully aware of the things you want to do: Rather than looking away from your workload, you want to be aware of it. When you panic, your mind looks away, and you end up not doing anything. You want to feel comfortable looking at your workload and being aware of what you want to get done.

3- Acknowledge your feelings: Don’t ignore your feelings of panic, fear, worry, anxiety, frustration, or any other feeling you’re experiencing. Acknowledge these feelings as your way of dealing with your present challenges. If you ignore your feelings they will simply operate in the background and set the stage for Panic Mode to take hold of your mind.

4- Admit your limits: Your workload seems daunting because you can’t handle it all at once. Admit what you are able to manage and what you can’t manage. Admit how much time you have, how fast you can get work done, how much effort you can afford to give and all the other restrictions you will operate within. If you don’t admit your limits, you’ll develop some unhealthy expectations.

Speaking of expectations…

5- Adjust your expectations: Don’t aim to do more than you can accomplish, and adjust your expectations according to your abilities. Say to yourself: “It’s OK, I can only do this much.” This way, you don’t pressure yourself into producing results you know – somewhere in your psyche – that you can’t produce.

6- Be realistic about what you can accomplish in a day: Don’t try to do everything under the sun in one day. That’s a switch to turn Panic Mode mode on. Instead, set reasonable daily targets you know you can achieve, and postpone everything else for the days ahead.

7- Focus on what you can do: Don’t worry about how things will turn out or what the stars may have in store for you. Focus on what you can do and leave everything else to take care of itself. Trying to control what’s outside your control is impossible, and the most sensible approach your mind can think of to deal with this impossibility is to go into Panic Mode.

Smile and take a deep breath. You just learned a way to deal with your Panic Mode. 🙂