You’ve heard of SMART goals, right?
Well, I got something different for ya today. START goals.
I like the acronym START as a way to get clear and get going towards those Golden nuggets in your life. But really, goal-setting, attainment, even failure isn’t about achieving “the thing;” it is all about building positive habits while you work towards the shiny object in the future.
To complete this process, you’ll need a requisite skill set. Meaning, if any of the steps feel hard that’s probably an arrow to something you need to work on (hello content for your new goal! 🤪) . I’d call the prerequisite skills:
Imagination and foresight
Discernment and self-knowledge of your fanciest desires
Focus and boundary-setting
Capacity to sit with how you feel, courage to transmute it or direct it to a loving place/state/form
Here’s the acronym:
S = see it.
T = tease it out.
A = anchor.
R = remember it by heart 💜.
T = tack it on 📌.
Run through this with me…
Pick of ONE area of your life you’d like to improve (let’s just take the five areas of my coaching for example: movement, mindset, fueling, relationships, and spirituality).
Pick just one.
We start with S.
Seeing is about being able to visualize, feel, and create a future bigger than you. Bigger than your current self. What will the person who is (fill in your blank) walk like, stand like, breathe like? Where will she live? What will she eat? What will she think about most of the time? Who will she be connected to? Visualize not just the destination but the environment within and outside of it.
Example: Your goal is to drink more water. Someone who drinks more water will have more energy to stand tall as she walks, her muscles will recover better so she will walk with more springiness, and—lungs (which are made up of 85% water) moistened with water, will open and close for fuller, better respiration. She could live anywhere (lol), but maybe you picture her in some particular location. When she drinks more water, she is better attuned to her hunger and fullness signals—so she doesn’t overeat and she craves high quality, nutritious foods like lots of veggies. She probably thinks about drinking water more often, and the world of creativity and cognitive clarity that will open up as her headaches, mental fog, and moodiness recede. She will be connected to…other water drinkers? Haha! That’s for you to visualize if this is your goal.
Next is T.
The visual for teasing out that comes to me straightaway is shaking disgusting lice out of your hair. Your beautiful head of hair—with strands free to express themselves and shine, becomes dirty, messy, chaotic, and very compromised when lice appear. So you have to pull out every bug creeping in the land of your goal(s). The bugs are the distractions and the lower priority tasks (could even never get done and it wouldn’t interfere with you doing the damn thang). So, you’ll ask yourself: what obligations can I drop here? what habits should I drop here? The bugs are also the goals that are not a “hell yes” for you or are not authentically yours. So, you’ll ask yourself: is this goal mine, or am I doing it to make someone else happy? did it come from me? And ask yourself: does this goal make me want to be a better person? does this goal make me want to spring out of bed every morning in dedication to my progress? If the answer is no, tease it out. Keep teasing it out til you get to the goal that is yours!
Now comes A.
Anchoring means deciding with full intention—with so much resolve and conviction and intensity…greater than any. other. emotion. flowing through you, that this (referring to your goal) is the thing you are committed to. That’s pretty much it. Seems simple, but you’ve paved the way for it by teasing out the bullshit.
Here's R.
Remembering your goal by heart implies that you begin taking consistent action to make it a reality. To bring it forward into your present moment. To remember by heart—just like to have muscle memory to run, shoot a basketball, square dance, or dive into a pool, means to know in your heart what it feels like to be the person who is achieving the goal. The only way to do that is to practice being that person, with full awareness, presence, and diligence. The cool thing that happens is—as the heart and brain are linked, your brain will pick up on how your teaching your heart a new way of being and you will literally become someone NEW.
By now you have:
-visualized yourself enacting your goal
-tossed out the goals that are not yours
-given a full “yes” to your goal
-begun putting in the reps needed to achieve your goal
Finally, we have (the second) T.
Tacking it on means stacking the practices that entail your goal-reaching steps to previously established habits.
Let’s go back to the goal of drinking more water.
Rather than make it harder on yourself by pushing through the paradox of choice while ordering at a coffee shop and having to utilize willpower to say ‘no’ to the coffee and instead choose water, in which case you may feel deprived or out of place, just drink the water after doing something you already do. For example, if you already drink the coffee, then after each sip of coffee, go for 2-3 sips of water. You have a battalion of pre-established habits you can tack your new goal-related habits on to. You put in your contacts, then you drink water. You brush your teeth, then you drink water. You make your bed, then you drink water. You finish your first business call, then you drink water. You get the gist.
Now it is your time to get STARTed.
Reach out if you have any questions or feel you need guidance.