Dooley Noted: 10/27/2015
One of my first questions to my patients is asking what they want to accomplish.
I hear many goals, and I see many people attacking them head on. Human potential never shocks me.
Other people surprise me with their self-defeat.
They state they want a goal, and we develop a highly individualized way for them to achieve the goal.
And they self-sabotage it.
They skip workouts.
They eat foods they know help them feel a sort of way that isn’t positive.
They have pain but don’t go to correctives they know help them.
They cancel therapy appointments.
I am not placing judgment. After all, I have victimized myself with self-sabotage.
And wanting to want a goal is different than wanting a goal.
If you’d like to want your goal, you have to take a moment-to-moment approach to its successful completion.
These tips may prevent your self-sabotage.
1. Get a buddy system. Be accountable to yourself AND to someone else. You may find you make the best choice for you through mutual accountability. We all need someone to believe in us when we don’t.
2. Keep training and food logs – but don’t obsess over them. If you missed a workout, don’t fall down the rabbit hole of self-loathing. Don’t chuck the goal. Chuck the bad day. It was an outlier. Just start again tomorrow. Goals have to be approached one day at a time.
3. If you’re too obsessive for logs that put you in a place of self-destruction, chuck the log and just text a buddy or your coach.
4. Hire people that can guide you through goal achievement. I’m a self-sufficient, goal oriented person. I tend to get what I want. But I don’t do it alone. I hire professionals to guide me, and I beta test their advice.
5. Assess the goal. Do you REALLY want this goal? Weigh the risks versus the benefits, and assess the sacrifices needed to achieve the goal. Make sure you even want this.
6. Many “want” to lose weight, or they “want” to be strong. Others “want” to be successful. Talk to people that have achieved the goal you seek. See what steps they took to help you design your own path. And don’t forget to ask them if it was worth the efforts.
I hope you want the goal, and don’t just want to want it.
I hope even more that you take the steps to get what you want, even if sometimes it’s two steps forward and one step back.
As always, it’s your call.
– Dr. Kathy Dooley
