Stick to Plan A!

Setting goals, whether small or large, can be daunting. It's not uncommon to have a Backup Plan in mind when you set a goal; however, research suggests this may demotivate you and interfere with achieving your ideal or primary goal. Let's talk about it!

The North Dakota Department of Human Services Community Engagement Unit brings this episode to you. Chii  Miigwech for your support!

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Transcript

Dr. Tami: Boozhoo (Hello) and welcome to the show. I'm Dr. Tammy, your host. Thanks for joining us. Today I'm going to be talking about goals and the process that's involved with setting some type of goal. And people a lot of times can be intimidated, yet it's our human nature to set out some kind of objective for us. 
It's our nature to want to aim, to achieve something. And some of us are multiple goal setters where we can have several things that we're working on at once. And other times people can set goals just for the day. And any goal, the way we want to talk about it is it's an aim at a target. I want you to just to think right now about the last goal that you may have set for yourself. Take a minute, scan your busy brain to slow it down and be very mindful of the last goal that you've set for yourself. How are you doing on that goal? That's the next question I want you to answer in your mind. What's the desired result of that goal? So are you accomplishing it? Are you close to it? Have you put it on the back burner? Is it something that your mind, when it's wandering, it wanders to this specific goal, and yet maybe you're not engaged in active steps to achieve any piece of the goal. Oftentimes I feel like when it's our human nature to maybe set a real lofty goal, something that is really big, and then maybe feel defeated if we're not achieving it, or if it's taking longer than we anticipated to really get to that point where we can say that we're done, that we've achieved it. These are all common areas where people can start to feel like they're in a web. They're caught in a web of why did I do this? Why did I set this goal? Some people even say, why am I punishing myself with such a big goal? Sometimes it's as if, why can't I be happy with what I've achieved thus far? And if you can relate to this internal dialogue where you're questioning yourself, don't worry. This is part of the process. And the word I really want you to focus on when you're with me today is that word process. Because many people don't really understand the multiple levels of what it takes to engage in a specific type of goal setting and to really monitor and say, am I doing this right? What's my direction? And then at the end, what's my outcome? How will I measure success? So I want to talk about that in your mind. It's going to be really helpful today for you to think about a goal. And in my mind today, I am thinking about the podcast. That was one of my most recent goals is to start a podcast. And that's where I want you to just focus on one of these today, because already just me saying that all of these other goals I've been working on just popped in my mind. And I think right now that's the discussion we're going to have today, that sometimes we set a goal, but we put a backup plan A, plan B. So just in case Plan A doesn't work out, then I'm going to move to Plan B, because Plan B is maybe my safety zone. Plan B may be where I can earn an income. If this was a job related, plan B may allow me to be less anxious or feel more like I can succeed at any kind of goal setting if I can allow myself some flexibility of not meeting that primary goal. So I think you can already. Maybe a lot of you may be thinking, okay, yes, my Plan A, maybe starting my own business, is something I have a goal. It's in my mind. I can see it. I want to do it. Yet I've had that goal for the past ten years, and I've been actually probably living in my Plan B, which is to continue to work at the organization that I'm in because I need health care, I need a steady paycheck. I have a mortgage, I have whatever your situation is, your Plan B may be to not achieve your Plan A because there's a lot of sacrifice and personal risk when you commit to a Plan A. And so there's different ways to go about your personal type of goal setting. And that's why I think that we cannot just say one style of goal setting fits all. I'm a psychologist. To me, there's not a one shop here. This is something that has to be individualized and it has to be done with care. So what's your aim when you set the goal? Usually we're broad, and that's what sometimes can make it feel unachievable or unattainable. Yet the broader that we tend to be and the more there's this level of vague or ambiguity with this goal, I feel like in a way, that could be setting us up for some type of failure because then we're kind of not sure what we're actually aiming for. So when you think about archery, you need a target. Most times I think you want that bullseye, right? But it's very clear to us that that's in the center, that that's what we're aiming for, and we know what we achieve. You achieve a certain level of points if you get that bullseye. So for you right now, go back to that goal that you were thinking about when I first asked you and say, what's my intention with this? And I'll give you an example. My podcast. My intention was to broaden my access and my reach. And I had to be very specific about that because it's not a full career for me. It is part of my career. It's one piece where I wanted to expand my career. And so that's where you want to look at what's the intention and so some people out there that may be your goal. Oh, wow, I want to start a podcast. Now go a little bit further and label what's the intention of that. Why do you want to start this? What do you want your outcome to be? What's the importance of you starting a podcast? What is that going to do for you and how is that going to look? And the more you break that down, the more you can center in on your target and the closer you will be to getting to that target. So for me, I wanted to add this to an existing career of what I'm accomplishing. Some people may say podcasting, that I want that to be my full time career. So your intention is very important. And traditionally, culturally in my culture, this is stressed often when you put something out into your universe and for your ancestors and for your people that are looking after you. When you put an intention out there, you want to be very clear because things may start to come your way. And sometimes we're asking for things that we didn't put a lot of thought into or that we maybe just assumed was the next good step without being fully committed to that or taking a look at. How would that impact the rest of the world around me if I did achieve this thing that felt like a desire, that felt like a goal? Really examine that intention and make sure that it's something that is self motivating to you. And then when you look at this, you have to think about an outcome. How will you know when you've achieved this goal? And so the outcome is, I think that's one of the biggest barriers because you can achieve pieces of the goal. You can sometimes even achieve the goal and not know if you're done or then do you have to set a new goal? Your next question is, and this is for you to define, please do not ask somebody else to define this for you. I want you to answer this question with the goal that you're thinking of. First is what's your intention? Can you be more specific? Can you break that down even further for me so I can understand this? I can see your target now. My next question to you is how will you know when you've achieved your goal? And this is called your primary goal. It's not all the other goals that are competing with this. This is the one that you are setting out as your main goal that you want to accomplish your primary. It's your plan A. You want your plan A to work out for you. The outcome is the end result of all of your work, your ambition, and your effort. So in order for anybody to achieve a goal, those are the things that are needed. The work, your ambition and your effort your tenacity, your initiative, your ability to be self motivated, to lead and take charge without somebody else grabbing your hand and pulling you through. So this is the next step. Once you've told me, okay, Dr. Tammy, I'll know I've achieved my goal of becoming healthier if I lost £50. Now, do you see how a goal of becoming healthier got more specific to losing £50? And then to say, how will you know that? Can you give me more on that? How do you know if you're healthier if you've lost £50? Then they might break it down more and say, well, I'll look at my blood pressure numbers, I'll look at my cholesterol, I'll measure my energy level. Okay, now, getting more specific and if they see positive change in all of those areas, was their intention of becoming healthier met? So the next step is, okay, if this is your determination of if you achieved your goal or not, how? Tell me your plan. Detail for me the steps that you need not want, but need to take to achieve your primary goal, your plan A to lose £50, your plan A to start a business, your plan A, to get involved into a healthy relationship. Whatever your plan is, you insert that. Now, I want details. Tell me how. Give me at least three good steps of what not that you would like to do, not that would be ideal, but what I would be necessary this is necessary for me to stick to my primary goal. So for me, with podcasting, it was necessary for me to publicly announce that I was doing this because this is a social platform. This is not something that can be done in private. I had to do the research, and I did a lot of research, and the research helped me get more specific on my intentions of what I considered success. This is part of it. You want to do this. This isn't letting somebody else make your goals. This is being very strategic, looking around without needing to feel like you're in a comparison or that you're not measuring up, but just to say what's out there. And when you're setting a goal, it's good to have yourself as the main marker of you're not competing yet. It's also good to know what's out there in terms of what's considered a milestone for me in this area. And podcasting for me was new. The plan that I needed to develop, though, is very specific, and it hasn't changed in terms of the work, the amount of work. If anything, the research I did help me be very mindful that this was not going to be an easy task. It wasn't my goal to just develop a podcast. It was my goal to develop a podcast that was sustainable. That's something that I could have content with continuous content and something that I would be self motivated to continue to do. And it had to be motivating and fulfilling for me because the amount of work that it takes to continually do this, I think it's with anything, any goal, we underestimate a lot of things. So that was because I know this and because I can jump into things. I know my personality type. I really slowed down and did my research. Where are you with your research on your plan? And then tell me, what are the steps that you need to take? Write down three of them in your mind, or if you have a piece of paper. One, maybe it's, I want to start a business, but I haven't developed a business plan. So one would be develop a business plan. Step two, look for financial support. Now, again, every time you do a goal, a plan that's a step that you're taking, that step can be broken down even further. Yet you have to start by writing down just your first thoughts. And when you do that, remember, that question is, can you break that down even further? So the more that you break this down and isolate steps, the greater your chance of success. And then you evaluate. When you evaluate and for me, it's consistent evaluation. And this means this is how I stay on. I need to stay on. My plan A of hosting the podcast is evaluating how I'm doing, consistently asking myself, what is my goal? What was my process? What's my reason for doing this? What is the aim of my ambition? What is the aim of my effort? Where do I want this to land? And how do I know if I'm being successful in this? So when you evaluate, you have to have some markers. How is my plan working for me? And it's okay to revise your plan, but once you start saying Plan B, this is where the data gets interesting. And it's showing that if you have a backup plan so Plan B is, well, if this doesn't work out, then I can stick to doing something else. And so this is where Plan B's can sometimes the research has shown that they can demotivate us. Sometimes they can derail us. Sometimes it can hurt our intentions of living fully. This ideal of the goal that we had set. So there is some risk of setting a plan B is that your brain might default to a Plan B. And some of this has been shown in the research in the literature when given another option, that people may work less towards the big goal. And I think this really has a lot to do with our personality. Other people like to have that backup plan because it's a safety net and it can really help them manage their anxiety. But if you're a person who knows, if I have a different route that's less challenging, I'll take that route. Then sometimes we set ourselves up. Sometimes it can be a form of self sabotage. It's those individuals who really are looking at some kind of big thing in life and I want them to be aware of that. That if they're feeling stuck or if they keep pondering it, or if it's an ache when you have a calling and you have an ache in your belly or in your soul because you can feel that you're not doing the thing in life that you were meant to do. You're not being the partner that you can be, you're not being the parent, you're not being the child, you're not being the community member, whatever that thing inside of you is really look at that, that's that piece of us, that we could be defaulting to a Plan B and being a lesser version. And you're not bad for this. You're not lazy, you're not unmotivated. This is part of what most people will start to do in a scenario like this because our primary goal, it's hard, it takes a lot of work, it takes massive self sacrifice. I also believe it involves a lot of suffering. It involves being okay with uncertainty or knowing you can cope with the anxiety of uncertainty and keep walking through. And because you're determined you can only see your plan A, this has to work for you because everything in your power and your being can see it and feel it. Even with the setbacks, even with the obstacles, your feet continue to move forward towards reaching this. So in that scenario, you always come closer to whatever your primary goal is. And maybe your desired outcome may change, but you'll definitely be closer to that if not defaulting to Plan B. And I totally understand for those of you who do Plan B, there's a lot of very successful famous people or just successful in life or call themselves maybe happy or content that are living their plan B and they're not beating themselves up about it. This really comes down to personal quality of life and you determine your success. Now that's the next factor. When I say you evaluate, nobody can tell you what's successful. This is where in your own words, I want you to write down what does it mean to be successful in this primary goal? And the more specific you can be, the more you're going to feel that level of empowerment, that level of personal satisfaction and nobody can do this for you. Society can say what success looks like. They can say who's successful, who's not. Yet when you're setting your individual goal, you can do research to get a big picture. Yet you really have to sit and define what success looks like in your life and not on a broad level. This is specific to your primary plan A. And so that's part of looking and being very aware that having a backup plan may become the default mode. And it can interfere, it can demotivate, it can become an obstacle or maybe even a safety blinking blanket as some people call it, but it's really your choice. And there's Peter Drucker came up with smart goals. So I'm going to read off a few of this so that this can help you be even a little more so. Smart acronym for specific. Be clear about what you're going to do. And that's where I talked about your intention. Be careful what you put out into the world because it just might start to come your way. And more often it will if you're really channeling it and working towards it and taking active steps. So it's okay. Take some more time, refined it. Soul Search when you set that goal, is it attainable? So that's another thing. Like I said, a lot of times humans can say, I set a big goal. I need to lose £100 in three months. Is that realistic or is that limiting? Is that attainable or is that a set up for huge stress and unrealistic expectations? So the next thing you want to look at, is it relevant to me? Is it realistic for me? Now, this is probably one of the most important areas where I want you to really focus in on, because the relevance to yourself, to me, is the gold standard of how to set the right plan A. It has to be. When I use that word, self motivating, something inside of you is calling you to this plan. And it's something that only you can sit down and say, why? Because nobody is going to make you get up and do this goal. Nobody is going to develop your plan for you. You can get help. You can get some coaching, you can get mentoring, you can ask experts. Yet nobody can do the work for you. So I hope that you've really looked at the motivating factor of why you want to do this for your soul, for your purpose. And motivation is something that many people struggle with. And I speculate it's because the goal was not self motivating. The goal or people forget to take in the factor of amount of suffering and work that goes into getting to your primary goal or your ideal self. That's the piece that can hurt motivation sometimes because the suffering can outweigh. And sometimes then plan B sounds so much better. And then a time frame. Look at that. Is it a short term or long term goal? Short term is you can break down your primary goal into short and long term so that it feels more manageable. Some people may be setting a goal that in the time frame, it's just not realistic. I'm looking at publishing a book and the time frame. I've been working on this for years and the time frame is starting to me it's been a plan B and I'm trying to get it up to my primary, but there were so many things that I didn't set even a time frame. And can I do it? Is it achievable? Within a certain amount of time. So that was the smart and they've also added to evaluate, so smarter so you can evaluate. And this is a great addition to the smart goal. That's the piece where you need to pull it out. Look at your plan, restrategize. If things aren't going well, it can help you say, I'm not giving up on my goal. I have to look at my strategy and I have to adapt and change because that's the constant. Just because you set a goal does not mean everything should fall into place because it's a great thing and it should come to you. No, you will have obstacle after obstacle and you will have to sacrifice while you're learning to grow and show consistency of how bad you want your plan A. That's the piece of it. And you can change things up yet. Your primary goal is the thing that you're saying, I'm not going to change that because I'm sticking to my plan A, but I will revise other steps along my way. My plan, maybe I have to relook at my outcome, but the closer I get to setting all of this, the more my arrow will hit closer to that bullseye target and constant review. Give yourself a time to sit and reflect on every step that you've taken towards that goal and those where maybe you are fearing some success or fearing some failure because it's always risky to put yourself out there. Many of us set goals that we don't achieve, even if it's just day to day. Some of the goals that you can wake up and think, I want to be to work on time. This is a common goal where I set for myself and a lot of times I don't meet that goal because my backup plan is, well, you'll just get there late and you'll apologize for being late and you'll live in chaos for the rest of the day and try to catch up and replace that lateness. That's my plan B. And my plan B is not working well for me. But I haven't really moved that up to my primary yet. So you're kind of getting an idea of how this can go back and forth for us in terms of whether it's a little a smaller goal or whether it's a massive goal. It can still feel like you get caught in a web of how do I achieve this? How do I improve my chances of success when I define my success? And how can I take the initiative or learn self management skills so that I can take this action independently? Self motivated. Some of people have these natural personality traits. It's not that it's just easy for them. It's part of how they've learned how to survive. A lot of it is learning to do things independently for yourself and on your own. That may have started way back in childhood, early childhood, that now may become a very helpful trait as you manage adulthood and achieving and going closer, growing closer to your goals. Now, there's always a great question of are people scared of is there fear of failure or is it fear of success? And that's what you have to answer for yourself. I would say everybody's scared of failure. I don't know if everybody is scared of success. So I think fear of failure is something that we all experience, yet it's not debilitating to some. Some people can see that failing is part of getting to success. So they normalize it, and everybody can normalize it. Purposely fail a few times at something. Allow yourself to fail at some of the smaller things, maybe, so that you can start to know that it's not a catastrophe, that failure is part of risk taking and being okay with being human and trying again. Most people have to try things multiple times. And if you focus on the prize, failure becomes part of the learning that sets your path to success. So the other thing is fear of success. Now, it takes a lot of courage to live in what you define as your success. Because, again, it may not be what the world is deeming as success, but you've achieved something and then now you've had a taste of it. So you also have to work at maintaining it. Because like anything in life, our success can be taken from us. We can lose it. We can lose an ability or a skill. We can lose a person or something that we were using to define our success. And then we would have to recreate, what does it mean for me to live in my success now that a vital piece of it has gone? I also feel like that feeling of when you have something you wish for and you get a taste of it, then you lose it. Many people can wish they never had a taste of it because then they don't have a longing for it. And so some people, maybe just whether this is consciously or unconsciously, may stand in their own way because it does take a lot of effort and courage to be risky enough to feel successful in your life because there's so much at stake. Yet if you can continually restructure, rebuild, and if you are capable of defining your own success, that's how you can be okay and keep striving for a plan A. So I really enjoyed this conversation. I hope that many of you were able to think about intentions, break it down, be more specific, and come up with a plan, but also normalize this process. So thank you for joining me. 
PS. Goal setting. It's a process. Don't forget to sit down and take some time to really set that intention before you dive in. Miigwetch (Thank you).