Volume 4, Issue 2
August 21, 2004
Beyond Success Newsletter
Break Through Your Goal Defense System
by Trish Pratt
Recently I was giving a presentation and asked the audience, "How many of you have had goals that you didn't achieve?" Nearly all the attendees raised a hand. I then asked, "How many of you have experienced setting the same goal for yourself more than once and still didn't achieve it?" Again, most of the audience raised their hand.
And so the question then was "Especially for those who have had the same goal more than once and didn't achieve it, how many of you know exactly what happened to throw you off course?" Very few hands went up.
My last question to the audience was "What would it be worth to you to know exactly what it is that takes you off your goal -- that would then give you a more powerful way of staying on track?"
At their very essence goals involve change. Often some of the most difficult goals are those that involve change at a personal level. Most of us have experienced goals around day-to-day issues such as smoking, weight loss, or exercise. Often the goals we set for ourselves are about accomplishing a task that requires an increased level of focus or discipline. Sometimes the changes we are looking to make are about our health or appearance, and sometimes about the success or growth of our business. Whatever the change is that you might be considering, know that we human beings, especially at the adult stage, simply don't like change. We are content with what we know and is familiar to us. We are very comfortable with our eating, our lifestyle, and our other patterns. They are familiar, and, at a deep level, are home to us.
In our resistance to change we naturally create defense mechanisms to prevent change from occurring. Much like the body working to maintain homeostasis as it continually brings us back to our resting pulse rate, slows our breathing to our normal repiratory rate, etc., our change defense mechanisms bring us back to what has become our norm.
One of the most powerful approaches you can take to achieving a goal is to increase your awareness of your defense mechanisms. One study shows that we have three basic defense mechanisms that we use to prevent ourselves from making a change. They are:
- You forget.
- You forget to set the alarm for your morning exercise routine.
- You forget that you aren't eating sweets when a friend offers you a piece of chocolate cake for dessert.
- You just now remembered that you were supposed to work on a project yesterday.
- You are uncomfortable.
- You planned on getting up early to exercise but realize now that you feel light-headed in the morning and find yourself thinking that morning might not be the best time for you to exercise.
- You are getting headaches from caffeine withdrawal and so maybe you throw this "no caffeine" goal away telling yourself that you need at least a little coffee in order to function.
- You find yourself feeling shaky after going the whole day without a cigarette and so give yourself permission to smoke one cigarette.
- You decide that your schedule for taking that certification exam is too stressful and that you need to rethink the date and put together a new goal.
Know that your body is doing whatever it can to tell you that it simply doesn't want to change. - You simply decide it's the wrong goal.
- After one week of getting up to exercise at 6 a.m., you realize you are simply not a morning person. You'd like to rethink this plan and maybe come up with an evening exercise goal, until you realize that you're not an "evening" person either.
- After ten days of not smoking you realize that it would probably be better to change the goal to some kind of gradual decrease in smoking rather than going "cold turkey."
What could be a better way to throw away any accountability than to simply forget the goal!
As you consider setting a goal for yourself, keep an eye on these defense mechanisms. Keep in mind that the chatter that's going on in your head (it's called monkey chatter) may not be your truth, but rather your body's defense system at work. When this happens, you simply need to recognize the defense mechanism for what it is and tune in to another voice (wisdom) and hear beyond the chatter.
Wishing you the joy and satisfaction of success,
- Trish
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About Trish
Trish Pratt is a professional certified coach and consultant. She is also a certified PaperRoom coach trained in pattern recognition (see www.momentumcoaching.com/paperroom.html for more details). Trish helps managers and other professionals bring their best clarity, communication and leadership to their work. She does this with one-on-one coaching, training/workshops, and through articles she writes. Contact Trish today for a complimentary consultation at: 978-635-0603 or via email at: trish@momentumcoaching.com.
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