10. Small Steps, Big Wins: Mastering Incremental Goal Setting for Lasting Change

Discover the secret to sustainable weight loss in our latest episode, 'Small Steps, Big Wins.' Join Dr. Stacy Heimburger as she delves into the power of incremental goal setting and mindful planning. Learn how taking small, measurable steps can lead to significant, lasting changes in your diet and weight loss journey. Don't miss out on expert insights and actionable tips to help you achieve your wellness goals. Tune in now and start your path to a healthier you!

Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones by James Clear (Author)

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This episode was produced by The Podcast Teacher.

Transcript

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Have you ever felt overwhelmed by big goals today I want to dive into breaking down big goals into small, manageable steps can lead to significant success. Also, we need to celebrate the small wins as we go, and that will keep us motivated to succeed in our bigger goals, this path success through small steps really I get some inspiration from the book atomic habits by James clear highly recommended. We put a link in the show notes but if you like me and get everything on Amazon, anyway atomic habits by James clears, great book and there’s an audio version as well, he talks about the compound effect of tiny daily habits and I think my favorite example in there is talking about how often times will see change in someone else and think they’re lucky that just happened right we have a tendency to discount all the small work it took to see the effect, so he uses two examples. One is an ice cube melting, the ice cube if it’s sitting in a cold room that you increase the temperature by 1° every hour for hours and hours and hours it’s still gonna be frozen and then it will melt when we hit the right temperature makes sense what we discount is that that ice cube is really changing and being prepared for the melt during every degree the temperature rose so in our weight loss journey, we have a tendency to discount all the changing that is happening until the scale changes scale move ice cube it doesn’t always happen immediately, but if we don’t keep raising the temperature, we just give up the ice cube never melts the scale never moves so this idea of these very small changes Not counting is incorrect we just don’t always see them. Small changes really can add up significant change so as we come here to the end of the year and start making goals for 2024 I thought this was important to talk about lots of times when we set goals we know what we want the result to be so December 31, 2024. We want to be doing XYZ or we want to have lost X amount of pounds is forget to extrapolate that goal all the way back to January 1, 2024 so if we want to be we want to run a marathon December 31, 2024 and here on December 29, 2023. We’re not even walking every day setting up our goal January 1 that’s it we’re gonna go to the gym we’re gonna go outside a mile every day Not sustainable it’s probably going to lead us to feel like we failed when we can’t accomplish that and will definitely ensure that we don’t end up with our goal on December 31 of 2024. A good example of exercise is the couch to program it running a 5K on the first day it slowly build up overtime, so we run marathon at the end of 2024 we start couch in January and walk for 10 minutes. I don’t know for all of January. I’m gonna just increase my walking and then I’m gonna add in some jogging and then maybe in March I’ve run a 5K Then I had some more running and then a couple months later maybe the time I get to September I’m ready to do a half marathon maybe as I go through the year realize I’m probably busier than I gave myself credit for and maybe I need to do a little bit less maybe I change my goal I’m gonna do a half marathon December 31, 2024 and I out my goal but I’m doing small steps consistently And that is what will lead us to be able to run a half marathon by the end of the year marathon by the end of the year we have to set realistic expectations for ourselves. We have to know where we’re starting from where we want to go and really break it down if we’ve got 12 months to reach a goal Run 13 miles we don’t need to be running 13 miles January 1. I feel like I see this all the time I feel like you should do this all the time why I didn’t reach my goals before I was thinking about it wrong first of all, just write down this random goal, lose weight I had no measurable Criteria. How did I know if that was true? Do I even know where I’m starting from? Do I know where I wanna go useless plastic how much am I using now I wanna be using I never had measurable criteria and then I took. I didn’t know how I was things, one of these went through some old journals found some of these I think one of them was like save money how much was in my savings when I started in January I didn’t write it down how much did I wanna write that down either and then I did Q3 month check how can you check in if you don’t know where you don’t know where you started don’t know where you’re going and don’t know what you even want. What’s a halfway point or 1/4 of the way do you have Ables, I got serious about goals. I wanted to exercise because it worked really well. I wanted to start exercising more. I’m walking more so I had to find out where I was so warm my watch. I looked at my data back. I think every these days tracks if not, you know, Fitbit sold out there About 6500 steps 6000 steps I’d like to walk more steps most importantly and keeping track it wasn’t nothing. I looked at the day I hadn’t made 6500 that wasn’t an ex on the calendar right on the little habit journal I got these habit trackers let’s talk about it have a trackers that just mark yes and no I am not a fan of Steps for example I was trying to go from 6000 to 6500 what I would’ve done on my habit journal habit tracker is I would’ve had a less than 6000 6000 to 6500 and equal or greater than 6500 so there was something to put every day Knowing that at the end of the month whatever color I made more than 6500 I wanted to see mostly that on the calendar if I just put yes or no all it would’ve taken was a couple of days of not making 6500 for me to think I failed and for me to stop so this is the time I’m gonna go to the gym every day life happens and maybe three days in a row we don’t make the gym we stop we quit and we give up small steps, measurable steps, reward effort, three key points here small steps I’m only 6000 let’s go for 6500 in January Can I measure that absolutely found out where I was I know where I wanna go reward effort but if I only make 6300 right color do not underestimate how just a little bit of effort can help you get there I didn’t make 6500 every day the first month but I made it enough to move to 7000 the next month same thing rewarded effort I measured I kept track if I made enough days of 7500 moved to 8000 and keep going all year till I get to a point where I really just I’m not making it right we’re most of the days are not above goal maybe I stay there maybe I add something else in 5000 10,000 a day and it was a checkmark on my habit tracker. What do you think? What happened what had a few days in a row I couldn’t walk 10,000 cause I would’ve been sore from 5000 10,000 in jump I would’ve quit and I get to December I can still be walking five steps Unrealistic expectations will set you up for failure and we feel like we failed. We will quit and we are done doing that now. When we reward effort, that is what will keep us motivated any goal you said should not be an all or nothing we have to reward the small wins these efforts this small achievement that is what keeps us, motivated, motivations come divinely and strike us. In the middle of the night. We set a goal we measure it we make it realistic, and we were reward ourselves along the way, we have to acknowledge the small wind that is what keeps motivation that keeps us going. We have to be willing to modify if we need it my first example I don’t think I could go running at all running marathon at the end of the year I work full-time I like Coach other things I don’t think I have time to dedicate so I would like if I had started that I need to switch to half marathon, which is a huge achievement from not running at all to running a half marathon or nothing thinking would make me feel like a failure cause I said December 2023 I wanted to run a marathon and I only ran 13 miles come on 13 miles from nothing to 13 that’s huge so if we are rewarding ourselves along the way, for every day that I give effort for every day that I accomplish something for every small step I will feel very accomplished, and very motivated throughout the whole year to get it done This works very well for exercise but this can also work with eating and drinking water and resting. OK let’s not do all of them at once. Pick one thing for January pick one thing that you wanna make a small improvement in for January set your Ables so that you can reward effort so if it’s water I want to try I did my assessment my miserable I’m drinking 8 ounces I’m gonna try and drink 16 ounces in January, so I have a tracker I thought less than 8 ounces 8 to 16 and over 16 and I reward effort I get to the end of the month and most of my month is colored in green or whatever color I pick for 16 ounces then I go up the next month Here you have it by summer I’m all kinds of hydrated right I’m drinking I’m doing it maybe that is easier than I thought and after two weeks like 16 ounces is no big deal maybe I readjust maybe I add another glass of water so by the end of January I’m drinking three glass of water And then maybe I try and add something else only add if it’s easy to maintain the habit you’ve picked first, so if you cruise a month, drinking 64 ounces of water cause that was your angle then maybe we go to the next goal OK write it down stay accountable reward effort small small sustainable changes. Just a quick reminder before we go, if you are fed up with complex diets that demand counting calorie or buying a whole pantry food and don’t take into that you are busy and tight on time if you need a accountability to set your new goals so that your success is in evitable. I invite you to check out my new small group coaching program starting January I’m doing early bird enrollment just for a few more days until December 31. Lots of fun bonuses in there so if you are ready to start the new year with the weight loss plan that is simple fits in your schedule and where your success is inevitable because we plan our goals Smartly let’s chat and see how we can make it work until next time