When we want to ‘make a difference’ in our lives (get more active, get fit, lose weight, reduce stress etc), we go to an ‘expert’ for advice, guidance and, often, motivation. After all, an expert is usually someone who is highly trained and highly knowledgeable. This means that they know what to do. More importantly they know what YOU should do, what you ought to do (and of course what you have been meaning to do for some time!). When you meet with your expert what happens typically follows a common path – an approach that I call “Show and Tell”.

In simple terms here’s what these interactions usually look like:

Step 1. You meet with, and talk to an ‘expert’ about what your goal is (“I want to lose weight, get fit, reduce stress etc”)

Step 2. Then, after a conversation that varies in length from person to person, the expert first shows you what to do “Just follow these steps (and/or directions and/or advice”, and then tells you how to do it. “Make  sure you do it like this (and then this, and then this…”)

Step 3. The expert keeps showing you and telling you in different ways until you do it ‘properly’. If you do not succeed in making your goal, the typical expert response is something like

“Ok why do you think you didn’t make it?” or maybe “Ok let’s try (something different) this time”

By the way, the other thing to mention here is that if you don’t ‘make it’, the fault is almost always assumed to be yours (both by you and by the expert). Maybe you just didn’t try hard enough, or have enough will power, or enough commitment etc. Sound familiar?

Here’s the thing about this ‘Show and Tell’ approach. It is at its most effective only in Kindergarten! My children loved their Show and Tell sessions but have long since outgrown them and moved on to more appropriate learning methods. However, in my field of exercise, wellness and physical activity, Show and Tell still reigns supreme. The kind of three-step approach I describe above, is based on the assumption that if you simply provide intelligent people with important and understandable information about the benefits of healthy behaviors (or, more frequently, the risks of unhealthy behaviors) then they will take this to heart and ‘just do it’ (with apologies to Nike!). There is no question that, assuming the information and instruction provided is accurate, this really would be a highly effective approach

if only people would do it!

However history has shown us that, even with the ever-increasing availability of health and wellness information in the media and on the internet, more people are overweight and sedentary than ever before. It is clear that knowing what to do, or having an expert show and tell us what to do simply does not work – but we continue to ask them anyway!

This is not the fault of the expert, who has been through some highly demanding academic training that prepares them to offer their own thinking and expertise to the client as to what they ‘should’ do. It’s also not the fault of the client – who is prepared to believe that the expert knows best – after all that’s why they are an expert! The tendency is therefore that the expert will think (indeed, are trained to think) they know best for the client and the client will think that the expert knows best for them – that is, after all, why they went to him/her in the first place. No-one is ‘at fault’ here – it is fault neutral! However …..

It is time for a new way of thinking

Making your own difference: You are a singular and unique individual on this planet, you have your own goals and aspirations, your own motivations and inspirations, your own wants and your own needs your own ‘angels’ and your own ‘demons’. Here’s that new thinking – try this on for size!

- YOU are the expert on you -

No-one knows you better than you – no-one! You know instinctively this must be true, so think about what logically follows. If you pass over responsibility for yourself to someone else – to someone who knows only what they see of you, maybe has only just met you for the first time – to someone who can only work with what is merely apparent to them – how can you realistically expect something important and lasting to happen for you?

If you ask someone to ‘prescribe a program’ for you – and you take responsibility for doing the program. What you are actually doing is taking responsibility for THAT person’s program – for someone else’s stuff! After all they made it up FOR you. If and when you start, or – like so many others before, re-start such a program – you do so more in hope than expectation. This is no way to achieve a goal. Experts know all about ‘cause and effect’ – this is their training, this is their knowledge. They know that “If you do ‘this’, then ‘this’ will happen”. However they don’t know YOU – they haven’t been educated in YOU – the don’t have a degree in YOU.

We hear a lot these days about ‘personal responsibility’ – for health, for being active etc, and we hear about how it’s all down to us. At base, this is true of course – responsibility for our health is, in the main, ours. Taking responsibility is a good and desirable thing, but if you do take it, you’d better make sure it’s responsibility for something that’s yours – not someone else’s idea of what you should or shouldn’t do.

This is the new thinking – where you go from here is all about what’s important to YOU

I have also written about the related concept of  ”Thinking Different” in a series of  previous posts – check out http://telosity.wordpress.com/2008/02/26/get-smart-look-yourself-in-the-i/

More later

surround yourself with friends

On the Beatles legendary ‘Sergeant Pepper’ Album, Ringo sings …

I get by with a little help from my friends …

Leaving to one side for the moment the quality of his singing voice (or lack thereof) I am here to tell you that John, Paul George and Ringo may have hit on something with that sentiment. It appears that ‘The Fab Four’ were way ahead of their time with their philosophy regarding the relationship between friendship, health and even longevity! The reason I make this bold statement (and an even bolder attempt at singing a few bars of this song while waiting in line at Starbucks) was because I spotted something in the newspaper I picked up which caught my attention.

An article in the Tuesday April 21^st issue of Science Times (The New York Times) reported on the rapidly increasing amount of research into the importance of friendships and social networks to overall health. Here’s the lead paragraph in full

In the quest for better health, many people turn to doctors, self-help books or herbal supplements. But they overlook a powerful weapon that could help them fight illness and depression, speed recovery, slow aging and prolong life: their friends. 

The article cites an Australian study which reported that older people with a large circle of friends were “… 22 percent less likely to die” during the study period than those with fewer friends. Also a large US study that reported ” … an increase of almost 60% in the risk of obesity among people whose friends had gained weight”. In the June 17, 2008 issue of the American Journal of Public Health, a  Harvard research team followed 16,000 men and women over age 50 for six years. The results showed a clear connection between being socially active and involved, and preserving memory and cognitive abilities.  There is increasing evidence to suggest that friendship has an even greater effect on health than a spouse or family member.

This is all highly interesting and valuable information, and more research of course will bring even greater clarity to these connections. In the meantime however I want to comment on the way this kind of research is conducted and the way it is reported. In my ongoing quest of pursuing an ‘assett-based’ approach to health and wellness, I continually find that ‘benefits’ are almost always reported as ‘reductions in risk’ - or as I have written in previous posts ‘Getting less bad’ (See http://telosity.wordpress.com/2008/01/22/getting-less-bad/).

Take the results of the Australian study reported above. The other way of viewing these results is that older people with larger circles of friends were (some percentage)  more likely to live  – and so continue to enjoy life. Now, which would you prefer to experience – being less likely to die – or being more likely to live? Of course it’s all in the way you think about it, but for me, positive is always preferable to negative. I’d rather ‘get more good’  than ‘get less bad’.  I view the US study in the same way. What about the group who had friends that were of normal weight? What positive things happened to them? What is the message being sent when research results are reported in this way? Avoid your friends, or avoid making friends if they are overweight? The point I am trying to make here is that there are many benefits to be gained from building and keeping friendships, perhaps more than we ever realized. More importantly these benefits are positive experiences, best ‘recieved’  (and most effectively recieved) when expressed in a positive fashion. While the research on friendship is still embryonic, there is a large, and still growing body of research in ‘Positive Psychology’ that confirms the relationship between positivity and health. So I say - take this to heart and choose to be ‘positively good’!

positively good!

Speaking of ‘positively good’ I wanted to add something else that struck me even more powerfully as I was reading this article. I was really taken by the fact that I have actually seen and experienced – in real life – the positive friendship- and socially- inspired benefits that the research in this article talks about through my involvement with STRIVE – the group-based strength and wellness program conducted by my other company The STRIVE Wellness Corporation (www.strivealive.com)

STRIVE is a fun, socially active, group strength training and wellness program, specifically designed for older adults. STRIVE uniquely combines an ongoing, comprehensive wellness assessment with personalized, expert attention, from highly qualified professionals. STRIVE members experience dramatic improvements not only in their functional fitness but also in their physical, social and mental health. Regular STRIVE members have a positively infectious outlook on life and approach getting older with a youthful enthusiasm. But STRIVE isn’t just a place to get fit… it’s a place to make new friends, share experiences, find support, dream new dreams…

Thats what we say about STRIVE – and that’s what we have discovered with STRIVE. You can read and view testimonials from dozens of participants supporting these claims @  http://www.strivealive.com/access/?c=stories. As far as the research in the above newspaper article is concerned, very often life preceeds research – or maybe it’s more appropriate to say that life sometimes prompts research to investigate things that people have ‘known’ for years!

To paraphrase the newspaper quote above

In the quest for better health, many older adults turn to doctors, self-help books or herbal supplements. But some are also discovering  a powerful weapon that increases their strength, independence, vitality, energy and quality of life: STRIVE! 

With a little help from STRIVE, our members are activating their aging as well as activating their engagement with life

- and their engagement with friends -

ever spinning ...

As we think about what we ’should’ do in our quest for health and wellness (and, too often, ‘why’ we don’t do it!) we frequently find our thoughts blowing around and around inside our head just like those child’s colored windmills. As I was writing this, it reminded me of the words of that Michel Legrand song of the late 60’s, “Windmills of your Mind”

Thought move!

As I do most mornings before anyone else is up, I was listening to an audio book of the Tao Te Ching (Wayne Dyer’s Change your thoughts, change your life – I recommend it to anyone). Verse 59 was about ‘Living untroubled by good or bad fortune’, and in his analysis of this verse he mentioned the Albert Einstein quote which is the title of this post “Nothing happens until something moves”. As I meditated after this verse it came to me that although Einstein was talking mainly through the medium of physics, this quote also applies to lifestyle change – and to meaningful goal setting (Also maybe a kind of physics (physical-ics?).

So here’s my Tao-inspired thinking about this

Meaningful health related behavior change is all about setting ‘action oriented goals’ – which involves two sets of ‘movements’

the thinking and the action

While it is true that ‘nothing happens unless something moves’, it is also true that nothing happens unless someone thinks, and so (stay with me here Albert) no different movement (or behavior) can result without different thinking. Ok, take a deep breath and read that again slowly, I know I’m going to!

The point I am making here is that the first ‘movement’ has to be one that starts inside your head – a ‘thought move’ away from your usual thinking – an ‘aha’ moment, however small.  Without this first ‘different thinking’ there will be no different movement, and even though ’something may move’ physically, there will be no lasting change in behavior – just a return to, or a continuation of, ‘the usual’. Nothing different happens without different thinking. Usual continues Usual, Different produces Different.

 So … two questions

1. If you are doing ‘the usual’ what does ‘the different’ look like to you?
2. What thought is happening to move you?

Think (differently) about it – make a thought move

options actions directions

If history is any judge, telling people what to do is not a great way of eliciting behavior change. As I have commented many times in different ways on this blog, goals are best achieved when they are truly/intrinsically important to the individual involved and when they have ‘ownership’ of the goal and the actions and directions leading to its achievement.

However, offering ‘options’ rather than ‘instructions’ or ‘tips’ can be one way of eliciting this kind of ‘intrinsic thinking’. So … here are some great options that have worked for many people who were ready to become more active. Some of these may work for you and some may not. Some may not even be possible or desirable  for you – but prompt a thought that takes you in a direction you realize that you value but just hadn’t anticipated.

So as you think about these options below, what options, actions and directions are coming up for you?

The ‘doc’ Option:  Actually, this first one is a recommendation! Although for the great majority of people, exercise is both safe and beneficial, we recommend that you first talk to your doctor about your ideas and options for becoming active before you start any kind of activity program. Include him or her in your options – they will definitely be interested! The American Medical Association and the American College of Sports Medicine have recently collaborated on an initiative called “Exercise is Medicine”. This recommends that physicians become more knowledgeable about, and involved in, the physical activity goals of their patients.  If you have questions about being active that your doctor can’t answer – or even if he/she can –  ask to be referred to a qualified wellness educator or trainer. You can also refer your physician to the “Exercise is Medicine” website – they’ll thank you for it! Here it is http://www.exerciseismedicine.org/media.htm

The ‘family’ Option:  Research has shown that one option for activity is ’social support’. In other word people are more likely to start and continue to be active if they have the support of others. So ….e.g. ask a family member, or a friend, to join you on your regular walks. This then becomes more of a social event than ‘exercise’ or ‘a workout’. Perhaps you can find someone who enjoys – or would like to enjoy spending some active time with you – from grandchildren to grandparents. Think about and talk to your family about ‘energy using’ ideas around the house or outside the house and incorporate them into your active lifestyle plan. Make it a game for you and/or your children. See “The F Word” for a different kind of thinking about exercise or physical activity http://telosity.wordpress.com/2008/01/17/the-f-word/.

The ‘do a little more’ Option: Shopping, doing errands and even housework or chores can also be a way to add activity into your life. The great thing here is that to elicit any benefits, these ‘exercise that isn’t really exercise’ options only have to be at ‘moderate intensity’. For more details on doing ‘a little bit more’, see http://telosity.wordpress.com/2009/02/19/little-by-little . Once you get the idea from this information, then you have endless options to be a higher energy user rather than a lower energy user!

The ‘extra steps’ Option:  A simple and inexpensive pedometer can keep count of your daily activity in terms of the number of steps you take each day. However here’s something to make a note of. When you read about pedometers, you will no doubt discover that you ‘need’ to do 10,000 steps per day to receive any health benefits. This is really oversimplifying things, so don’t get discouraged by this enormous number – physical activity is not solely about arithmetic. Look back at our 3^rd option above and simply ‘do a little more’. In other words use your pedometer to track how many steps you usually take in a day (record 2 or 3 days and take the average) and then look for ways to add more steps to this total. Progress one step at a time! Here’s a great article on pedometers written by one of my old Exercise and Wellness buddies Dr. Catrine Tudor-Locke @ http://www.alcoa.ca/research_u_docs/2001_05may_en_tips.pdf     

The ‘get stronger’ Option: I have left the ‘best’ until last here (my opinion!). Strength training has developed a bad ‘rep’ over the years – at least for older adults. Myths abound about how it is ‘too dangerous at my age’, or ‘it’s only for younger people’, or ‘it’s only for women – younger women’. The reality – supported by more than a decade of scientific research – is that individuals of any age can benefit from an appropriate program of progressive strength training. At the STRIVE Wellness Corporation http://strivealive.com/ we have been conducting strength training programs with adults as old as 92 for more than a decade. The results are astonishing and the benefits remarkable. Check out our STRIVE Stories @ http://strivealive.com/index.php?c=stories to see what older adults are saying about us, about STRIVE, and about how they feel as they get stronger. Also check out our blog @  http://strivealive.wordpress.com/ for an (ever increasing)  series of short articles/posts about the many benefits of strength training. Getting stronger is so much easier – and the benefits so much greater than you may think!

So, again, as you think about these options above …

what action oriented options are coming up that are important to you?

body mind spirit

Building ‘Wellness Cultures’  in Senior communities

In recent years ‘Wellness’ has received much attention and the benefits of adopting what has come to be known as a ‘wellness lifestyle’ has been confirmed and reconfirmed from a wide variety of ‘evidence-based’ research. There can be little doubt that for senior residential and retirement communities a wellness program, appropriately designed, can elicit a whole range of behavioral, health and even economic benefits for the facility, the residents and the facility staff.

Wellness, however is not just about ‘exercising’, ‘eating right’ or taking your medications. It is also, in its fullest expression, not a single ‘program’, or even a collection of separate ‘programs’. Wellness is actually a very broad and somewhat indefinable concept which can be thought of as a journey rather than a destination, a process rather than a product. It is also often described as consisting a number of diverse but linked ‘dimensions’, including physical, emotional, social, vocational, spiritual and intellectual.  I will be writing more about these later but suffice to say that when these dimensions are appropriately implemented, merged and developed, a comprehensive evidence-based Wellness ‘Program’ evolves into a Wellness ‘Culture’, something that becomes an integral and positive part of the community in which it resides.

For any successful senior residential facility manager, resident quality of life is surely at the top of their goals list. Increased quality of life means greater resident satisfaction, morale and consequently less resident turnover (plus, it makes management both feel and look good!). From a ‘bottom line’ perspective, a successfully implemented, values-based wellness program will reduce operating costs, reduce health care costs and be a major PR focus for attracting new residents.

Quality of life is the key to a successful community

Quality of life however depends on more than just bricks and mortar, more than providing fine accommodation, meals and services – it even depends on more than good health care provision, which traditionally has a ‘deficit-based’ or ‘reactive’ approach to health (fix the bad stuff). Our Intrinsic Wellness^TM approach is founded on an ‘asset based’ or ‘proactive’ philosophy (increase the good stuff). It is build, developed and guided in great part on participants choosing and becoming involved in activities that are important to them, that are intrinsically meaningful to them, and in which they have ‘ownership’.

I well remember many years ago as a young man being ‘the wellness bloke’ (it was in the UK and they use strange words like ‘bloke’ over there. In the US I would have been the wellness ‘guy’). Anyway to continue with my story – I would go into the facility or residence, do my ‘wellness program’ (usually an exercise class of some kind) and then leave – taking my ‘wellness’ with me! Before my arrival – and after my departure – things went on much as they did before! These days the awareness of wellness is certainly much greater (as, I am glad to tell you, is mine!), but it is still a word – and an approach much misunderstood and I could say also, much maligned, or at least underestimated. For example, I have experienced ‘wellness programs’ that consist only of medically oriented activities such as blood pressure screenings, or ‘taking your medication’ or ‘regular medical checkups’. Or wellness programs that consist only of ‘brown bag’ talks on various aspects of health. Of course these factors are important – but are not of themselves the whole of wellness or of a ‘wellness program’.

True wellness is determined by the informed choices or decisions a person makes about how they live their lives with vitality, meaning and purpose. A successful intrinsically derived wellness program appropriately integrated into a senior community can offer these choices to residents, and management alike. This will enable the community to become a place where quality of life is enhanced, a place of rejuvenation rather than a place where the attitude is one of ‘making the best of things’, of inevitable decline and deterioration. In effect a ‘true’ wellness approach is integral to the community rather than simply a ‘program’ that consists of set classes conducted at set times.

The AgeWELL Initiatives philosophy is to cooperatively partner with residents, facility management and staff so that we can collaboratively initiate and develop a wellness culture that becomes part of the fabric of their community, and that they are a part of.

For more details on establishing and developing an Intrinsic Wellness^TM culture in your facility, either leave a comment on this post or check out our website  http://www.agewellinitiatives.com/index.html . You may also call Dr. Wayne T Phillips @ (602) 793-0752

The Sanity Clause

We have known for several decades now that simply providing people with accurate, easy to understand information about exercise and wellness is no guarantee that they will actually act on this information. Never before, on the web and in the media have we had such a wealth of easily accessible information about paths to active, healthy living, and simultaneously never before have we had such a prevalence of inactivity and obesity/overweight in the US.

Clearly knowledge and education are not sufficient agents for behavior change and yet much of the approach in this area continues to provide the same information over and over again and continues to expect a different result.

Hold on a minute …. That reminds me of something

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.  Albert Einstein

Hmmm …time for a different way of thinking

I have posted some ‘thinking’ below which could perhaps be the start of a ‘different direction’. This is not an exhaustive list by any means but hopefully serves as starting point ‘options’. They are not meant to be guidelines or instructions. Some of these ‘options’ have been part of my thinking for a while and some came to me as I was thinking about and writing this article. They all have an evidence-based background. 

Different thinking vs usual thinking

• Different: Adopt a positive attitude and approach to exercise and physical activity by emphasizing the achievement of goals. Usual: Once you have set your goal, think of all the obstacles that can get in your way and then think of ways to avoid or overcome them (HUH?). Research has shown that an “asset-based” (goal oriented) approach is consistently more effective than a “deficit-based” (obstacle overcoming) approach

• Different: Focus on getting “more good” i.e. the positive benefits of exercise and activity (more energy, more alertness, greater self confidence). Usual: focus on getting “less bad” (reduce high blood pressure, reduce anxiety, stress etc). Was it Frank Sinatra that sang “Ac-centuate the Pos-itive… E-liminate the Negative”? That gentleman was ahead of his (wellness) time!

• Different: Provide opportunities for clients to think about and clarify what is important to them about exercise. Usual: Expert stresses what is “good for them” about exercise. NOTE: this is not the same thing – think about it! 

• Different: Consistently emphasize that heath related physical activity is easy to achieve and far easier than most people realize. It’s never been as easy as this to get active! Usual: typically “just do it” or “I just have to do it” or “I should do it”

• Different: Consistently “reframe” exercise and physical activity (with lots of examples, case studies and research) so it is presented and viewed as an integral part of a normal enjoyable life. Usual: the approach and attitude to exercise is something that is external to the person and not particularly enjoyable. Something necessary that just has to be endured. What a drag!

Think about it

Time passes

NOTE: The SMART series of posts is best read from the first post. Start with http://telosity.wordpress.com/2008/02/26/get-smart-look-yourself-in-the-i/ and read from there.

Timely

Effective goal setting is conducted and expected to be completed within a specific time frame i.e. “How long will you give yourself to achieve this goal?”

While research has shown that a definable, pre-determined time frame is necessary for effective goal achievement , from an Intrinsic Coaching® perspective there are really two time frames

What is important to you RIGHT NOW (Timeframe #1) 

When will you commit to achieving that goal? (Timeframe #2)

An Intrinsic Coaching® approach to Time takes the goal setting process to a whole new level of  involvement.  Anchoring the goal commitment to a time frame allows the coach to ask something far more meaningful and far reaching than just “How’s it going?” A coaching approach to Time provides a valuable context for learning …

You didn’t make the goal in the time frame? What did you learn? What will you do differently? 

You did make the goal in the time frame? What did you learn? What will you do differently?

Applying a coaching approach to Time frames can also be an important part of Accountability (another ‘A’ that could perhaps have been included in this acronym – SMAART?) . For example by asking “How do you want to be accountable for the actions you have committed to over this period? or “How do you want to keep track of your progress?” In this way the Time aspect enables the goal setter to take ownership of the goal he/she has set. Any number of options could be appropriate for this – email, phone call, etc. Research has shown that when goal setters take ownership of the goals they set, such goals are far more likely to be achieved. The important thing here is that whatever the goal setter commits to will continue to elicit the all important ’i’ response. This circles right back to where we started this whole series.

GET SMART – LOOK YOURSELF IN THE ‘i’

http://telosity.wordpress.com/2008/02/26/get-smart-look-yourself-in-the-i/

  NOTE: The SMART series of posts is best read from the first post. Start with http://telosity.wordpress.com/2008/02/26/get-smart-look-yourself-in-the-i/ and read from there.

Attainably

This seems like the most obvious of the S.M.A.R.T.s so far – you mean that if I set a goal it has to be one that I can actually do? – DUH!

On second thinking however this is a factor that deserves closer attention since very often, like beauty, attainment is in the eye (and more importantly the “i”, see below) of the beholder – reminding me of what Henry Ford once famously said

“Whether you think you can or you can’t – you’re right”

Research, and (eventually for some people) experience tells us that the ‘best’ kind of goals are those that are “challenging but achievable” – what industry and the corporate world describe as “stretch” goals, and pop psychologists or self help gurus often describe using motivational rhyming phrases

 ”If you can believe it, you can achieve it” … “if you can sustain it, you can attain it” … “if you can see it, you can be it” … “if the glove don’t fit you must acquit” – well ok maybe not the last one – but you get what I mean, right?

These phrases and others like them support the idea of something very simplistic like “you can achieve anything you set your mind to” – another popular declaration much loved by parents and anyone that wants to be President of the United States. When hearing this statement, even the most positive asset-based person (like me!) is likely to reply …. Anything????” You can achieve anything your set your mind to?” That can’t be right surely?

 As I think about Attainment and these kind of phrases, what comes up for me very powerfully is  the importance of the ‘i’ part of SMART – something I wrote about in the very first post of this series. Seeing things in your mind’s “i” brings up 2 essential, but often underestimated ways of thinking about goal setting and goal attainment

 Clarity – What does this goal look like to you?

Importance -  What is important to you about this goal?

 So for example

You want to lose weight? Ok, what does losing weight look like to you? What is important to you about losing weight?

You want to be more active? What does being more active look like to you? What is important to you about being more active?

You want to reduce the stress in your life? What does a stress-free life look like to you? What is important to you about being stress-free?

You want to  …. etc etc

 ”Any goal you set your mind to”, now becomes “any goal you set with these two in mind” (i.e. in your mind’s ‘i’). This “new thinking” brings up a whole new world of attainment possibilities – with an important qualifier – which turns out to be the next acronymic letter!

 So as you think about what you want to attain – what does this goal look like to you? What is important to you about this goal?

 NOTE: The SMART series of posts is best read from the first post. Start with http://telosity.wordpress.com/2008/02/26/get-smart-look-yourself-in-the-i/ and read from there.

Measurably

The second acronymic letter after the “i”, research tells us that a “Measurable” goal is a “makeable” goal. I’m paraphrasing here of course because it is highly unlikely that researchers would be this simplistic. In research terms you would be more likely to read that setting measurable goals allows you to “Establish concrete criteria for accurately determining progress toward the attainment of each set goal considered to be appropriate for the individual in question”.

But hopefully “makeable” does it for you

My point here is that if you can measure the goal you can make the goal. Of course “Makeable” is no guarantee you are going to “make it” – just that you are far more likely to do so if you are able to measure what you want to “make”.

Measurement provides meaning to your goal and puts your achievement into perspective (Did I make it or not? – Was I successful or not?). Only by measuring (and being able to measure) will you discover the answers to these indispensable goal-oriented questions. What is your start point? – What is your endpoint? How will you know where you end up if you don’t know where you started?

I made the point in my last post that being Specific in your goal setting was important. Being Measurable is all of a part with this because the more specific your goal is – the easier it is to measure. For example “I’m going to get more active this year” is not specific and not really measurable – how do you know when you have “got” more active? In contrast, “I’m going to walk briskly around the neighborhood for 15 minutes every day” is not only Specific but also Measurable (Did I walk every day around the neighborhood? Answer = Yes/No. Did I walk briskly? Answer = Yes/No)

You see how all these things are coming together?

So ask yourself … What will tell me I have achieved my goal?