Make your goals happen

So the first thing to think about is whether your goal is something that you actually want to do.

Now, perhaps this sounds like a silly question, because if you are considering something as a goal, then clearly you do want to do it, right? think this is necessarily true.

People set goals for all sorts of reasons.

Maybe they sound good, at least in theory.

Maybe other people are telling you that it should be a goal for you.

Maybe it is, in the abstract, something that you would like to do, I mean, maybe eventually.

But it is not as big a priority as other things in your life, perhaps right now.

So here is a way to figure out if you are motivated to do something or not, particularly something which might involve a habit or putting something regularly into your life or changing your daily schedule in some way.

Ask yourself this, would I do this on vacation? That is, would I continue this habit or would I still be pursuing this goal while on vacation? If you are planning to eat more healthfully this year, Would you eat more healthfully on vacation? If you are planning to exercise more often, would you be willing to exercise on vacation? If you are planning to drink less, would you drink less on vacation than you normally would? I am not saying you would follow the exact same schedule and protocol because, hey, vacation.

But the key is whether you would eagerly ditch the protocol because you were on vacation or not.

This framing came to me several years ago when I was on a cruise and was attending the orientation.

The cruise director told us about all the fun things we could do on the ship and during our shore excursions.

And then he grinned from ear to ear and let us all know that all diets are officially kicked to the curb.

He then mimed kicking something off the stage.

The crowd went wild.

I found this all fascinating.

I am sure that at least some people on that cruise had set some sort of goal to eat more healthfully during the year and then decided that being on a cruise was a guilt-free reason to not follow those eating patterns that they had set for themselves.

But why? What is it about being on a giant boat that would change anything about a goal you might have? I imagine the truth is that people didn't particularly want to eat more healthfully, at least among competing priorities.

And so when there was a socially acceptable reason not to, people were happy to take the excuse.

But for a long-term habit to stick, you will need to call upon your problem-solving abilities to figure out ways to stick with the habit when life is different from the norm for some reason.

You can't be calling upon your problem-solving abilities to get out of doing it.

So that is why I like this vacation question.

If you would still more or less do something while on vacation, then you do, in fact, want to do it.

For example, I still track my time on vacation because I find it useful to track my time.

When I had my running streak going several years ago, I would run on vacation.