Why you aren't achieving your goals

Are your goals spectacular, impossible and electrifying?

If not, don’t even bother. Boring goals yield boring results.

It’s why we can’t get ourselves to the gym 3 times a week, but we can climb Mount Kilimanjaro.
It’s why we can’t stay consistent on Linked-In but we can have six-figure launches. 

You’ve got to be inspired by your goals.

Before you set your goal in stone, ask these three questions:

1. Is it spectacular? (Is it going to change your life?)

2.  Is it impossible? (Does it feel like it’s beyond your current capability?)

3.  Is it electrifying? (Does it make your whole body pump with excitement?)

 Now you’ve got a goal worth pursuing.

How to change your habits

You donate to the gym every January.

I’m usually all for philanthropy, but this pesky habit needs to change. You know it does.

How come some people stick to their habits more easily that you?
At the core of our habits are expectations.
But why do we struggle to meet those expectations? (Ahem, actually going to the gym).

The brilliant Gretchen Rubin, author and habit zealot, developed a framework for understanding why we struggle with expectations and solved the puzzle for how to hack them.

The framework categorises people into one of four tendencies: Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, and Rebel.

If we understand our tendency, we can form habits much more easily.

There are two different types of expectations:

1. Inner expectations (expectations we impose on ourselves)

2. Outer expectations (expectations others impose on us)

Upholders respond readily to inner and outer expectations. They are easily able to follow through with their own expectations, as well as the expectations of others. E.g. They go to the gym because they expect it of themselves and because they don't want to let their gym buddy down.

Questioners respond readily to inner expectations but resist outer expectations. They question an outer expectation, and will usually only follow through with an outer expectation if it matches an inner expectation. They go to the gym because they've decided it makes sense to go.

Obligers respond readily to outer expectations but resist inner expectations. They oblige other people but struggle to commit to their own expectations. They go to the gym because they don't want to let their gym buddy down.

Rebels resist both inner and outer expectations. They don't like to be bound or to bind themselves; they want to do what they want to do - in their own way and on their own timeframe. They go to the gym because they feel like it, and won't go if someone expects them to (even if that someone is themselves!).

How to use your tendency to change your habits:

If you're an upholder dealing with burn out: take a leaf out of the questioners handbook and question why things need to get done. Is it reeeally necessary for you to do everything on your to-do list?

If you're a questioner struggling to meet outer expectations: Turn them into inner expectations (I will help my husband because if he's happy, it will make my life easier!).

If you're an obliger struggling to meet inner expectations: turn inner expectations into outer expectations. Have a gym buddy you can't let down. One word: accountability!

If you're a rebel struggling to meet inner or outer expectations: set yourself a challenge. People think you can't tone up? You'll show them! There's a reason the saying is "a rebel with a cause" and not "a rebel with an expectation."

Not sure which tendency you are? Take the quiz here!

How to crush it even when you’re exhausted

If you’ve been running yourself into the ground for your dream, you’ve been doing it wrong. I know this because I’ve run myself into the ground more times than I care to admit.

Trying to do #allthethings feels amazing in the beginning when you’re so productive. Waking up at 5am, going to the gym, working hard, starting a side hustle, working towards your dreams, following through on your commitments... but if you’re not careful, it can get a bit intense – no time for anything, always behind schedule, sleep deprivation and sickness.

However, I’m not here to tell you about “balance”. Balance is just a sophisticated way of saying half-hearted. I believe in going all-in on your dreams. So instead, here’s my solution: Set your ONE THING priority.

What is the one thing you are focusing on in 2020?

What is the one thing you are focusing on today?

If absolutely nothing else gets done, what is the one thing that will propel you forward towards your dream?

For me, that’s showing up online, every single day. If I show up and add tremendous value, I’m working towards my goal of building my coaching practice.

Let me know what your ONE thing is that will propel you towards your dreams in the comments!

What Would Elle Woods Do?

Tonight I watched Legally Blonde for beyond the 15th time (I can quote almost every line, anyone else?!).

Apart from being a funny comedy, Legally Blonde has got an absolutely kick-ass lead role.

Elle Woods is an unapologetically confident, positive person who knows she can handle anything. It doesn’t matter what is thrown her way, she has the self-belief we could all use.

My phone screensaver has been set with this saying “What would Elle Woods do?” for the last few months and as silly as it might sound, I genuinely believe I’m happier. When I choose to take on the identify of Elle Woods in any situation, the decisions I need to make become clear and the way I need to show up is immediately apparent.

It’s essentially a short cut to asking yourself, “How could I be a more positive, loving, kind, gregarious, unstoppable, confident person in this situation?”

I challenge you to set it as your screensaver and see what difference it makes!

Even when you don't want to

Do the thing you said you’d do even when you don’t want to.

When it’s 1am and you don’t feel like it.

When you just feel like skipping a day.

Do it anyway.

Every damn day.

Giftless Christmas

Happy Holidays everyone, no matter what you celebrate! We celebrated Christmas today with my cousins in London, and I wanted to share a new tradition we started: games instead of presents.

I love a gift as much as the next person, and I am not hating on gifts at all. The reason we chose to do no gifts this year is that last year, we all ended up buying each other the same things – pens, pencils, socks… from the same shop. We all went to a “gift shop” and bought things we felt like we had to buy.

I love gift giving when I find a brilliant gift and think YES! I know someone who would absolutely love this. It’s not their birthday or a holiday, but it doesn’t matter, I’ll give it to them anyway. But I don’t like obligatory gift-giving. I find it stressful, unnecessary and wasteful to consume things just for the sake of it.

So this year, instead of giving gifts, we all played games as our gifts to each other. We did Charades, Celebrity Heads Up, and our new tradition: Secret Santa Portraits. Everyone picks a name from a hat, and then you have to paint that person. Then we mix all the paintings up, and each person has to guess who painted them. Do you like the one my cousin painted of me? 😂

Now we’re all snuggled up together on the couch watching Lord of the Rings (again).

No one even mentioned presents, and no one felt left out. We had the most brilliant time, eating and playing games, without the pressure.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Found Until Proven Lost

In the last week I’ve watched several people freak out because they think they’ve lost an item, only to find out it was exactly where they’d put it, or somewhere hiding under something close to them.

And yet every time, panic sets in. “I’ve lost my phone!” we proclaim, the moment we’ve patted ourselves down and checked in barely two different places.

We get hyper-stressed before we even know if it’s actually lost.

That’s why I want to suggest a different solution: don’t panic until you know it’s lost.

Just like in a court of law, where a defendant is innocent until proven guilty, I function under this rule: the item is found until proven lost.

Because 99 times out of 100, the item isn’t gone. But when you set yourself into panic mode, you don’t think straight, and you can’t search for it properly. We’ve all been in the position where we’re so set on an item being “lost” that we can’t see we’re already holding it in our own hand or staring at it right in front of us.

Your new mantra: Found Until Proven Lost.

Will achieving your goals make you happier?

Something I hear a lot is “It’s superficial to set goals. You won’t be any happier with a fancy car or house or when you lose weight, so why try?”

Nah uh, honey! It’s true that your capacity for happiness isn’t going to increase when you reach a specific goal. You won’t suddenly have the ability to feel better when you have a new house. Your capacity for happiness is already at its peak.

You also won’t necessarily feel happier just by having achieved something or owning something new.

However, an essential ingredient for happiness is growth (according to theories in positive psychology), and goals give you the opportunity to grow, and therefore be happy along the way.

You won’t be happier THERE than you are HERE. But because having goals forces you to grow, working towards goals will make you happier NOW.

That means setting a THERE and working towards it is essential to being happy NOW.

Short version: The pursuit of the goal will make you happier, not the achievement of the goal.

Everyone Has a Secret Goal

Everyone has a secret goal. A goal they’ve been hiding away from the world because they were told it was unrealistic, or are afraid of being shot down or laughed at. Whether you’re 5 or 95, there’s always a secret goal brewing inside.

Today I visited my Grandad’s cousin and she told me her secret goal is to become an aquafit instructor. But then someone told her the course would be too difficult and had tried to put her off.

Bullshark. She is a total boss, and she knows she is highly capable of crushing it as an aquafit instructor. But she’s been putting it off because now she’s confused about what to do and where to begin.

Here’s the thing: confusion is a goal-paralyzer.

When we think we don’t know what we want or we believe we don’t know how to get it, we just do nothing. We give up before we’ve started. I know, because I’ve been there, and it sucks.

So she and I created a plan.

There are three main things you need to achieve any goal:

1. Clarity on exactly what it is you truly want

2. A simple plan of attack that includes daily action

3. Accountability to keep you taking that daily action no matter what

These three steps put people in LFM (aka: laser-focus mode).

At 71 she has:

1. Got clarity: Become a brilliant aquafit instructor in 2020

2. Created a simple plan for daily action: Go online to find out the requirements and sign up to a course – then take daily action to complete the course

3. Accountability: Agreed that I will phone her in June, and will be expecting her to be well underway to achieve her goal in 2020.

It doesn’t matter what your secret goal is – what matters is that you admit it to yourself and start taking daily action towards it.

What is the secret goal you’ve been stuffing inside your sock drawer?

Well that escalated quickly

Today I did push ups ON our flight from Tenerife to London… in the seat aisle!

I still have to see if I can hit 32 today, I’m about to head off and do them now. If you’d like to closely follow my progress, I’ve been sharing a lot on my instagram stories: @saraharnoldhall

I’ve also been trying to add in other elements to my workouts, like core and holding plank positions and variations such as this:

Do you have any top tips for workouts that will strengthen the muscles that don’t involve actual push ups?

Let me know in the comments, I’d love to hear!