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According to Bob Thompson, transformation expert and founder of Legion Transformation Centers, in order to accomplish anything you need a strategic plan, You also have to do things that make you uncomfortable. You have to be willing to be radical. On today’s show we continue our series on transforming. In week one we talked about The Mind Game and how to create a belief in yourself. On week two’s show it was all about the stumbling blocks and how we have to create an environment for success. This week we are talking about creating an action plan.
They say to succeed you need to have a plan and work the plan but, how do we know what goes in a plan? What makes one plan better from another? Is a good plan all action steps or are there other emotional quantifiers at play?
In order to get real about weight loss I had to get radical about what I was actually taking in each day. I spent one month weighing my food and counting my calories. I knew that I was not going to succeed by “cutting back.” Radical behavior is what is required for radical change.
Bob’s action plan components.
- Set the goal. Sounds simple right? Not so fast though. Most of us have an innate self protecting gene that doesn’t want to fail, be humiliated, look foolish or bite off more publicly than we are really willing to chew so we downsize our goals. I said my goal was to lose thirty pounds and Bob said, “What’s the real number?” Yikes! How did he know? I really want to lose fifty pounds but that seems daunting, unlikely, too big and more than I am willing to commit to. Bob says in order to reach our true goal, the one we only tell ourselves in our heads, we have to set a goal and then super size it. We have to make it BIG! Why make it big? Because setting an audacious goal makes us work harder. Even if we don’t reach 10K in savings, or fifty pounds or the whole marathon, the chances are higher that we will far surpass what our “play it safe” goal was. So… set a goal and blow it up!
- Put it Out There. Most of us keep our goals all tucked inside of us unwilling to risk ridicule, unsolicited advice and looking like a quitter if we drop the whole thing by month two. By putting it out there we make it real. We’re not playing it safe. We’ve created a scary situation and fear drives us with adrenaline and a higher level of motivation. We don’t want to look like a quitter and we are now more accountable to ourselves! Creating accountability increases our chances of succeeding. Say it out loud and show the world you are in it to win it.
- Be Willing to be Radical. I have to admit that I am the queen of Monday morning “cut backs.” I am not even out there enough to say diet. I start each week with the idea that this week I am going low carb and high protein and I will get a walk in at least three times after dinner. That is not exactly radical behavior and it is also exactly the kind of behavior that you fall away from by Wednesday when you worked late and your husband made pasta for dinner. Because I don’t put it out there, he doesn’t know I am “cutting back.” Bob says this is a recipe for disaster. If you want to do achieve a goal that has been alluding you, you are going to have to do things you have never done before. In the case of weight loss you may have to go old school and start weighing and measuring your food for a month. If you are getting out of credit card debt, it’s not enough to keep the plastic in the hard to reach zipper section of your pocket book. You are going to have to not just cut up the cards but call up and close the accounts. You have to take a radical approach because change requires changing habits and there’s no way to do that other than to rip the band aid off.
- Break down the Goal. You need to set the goal and then break down the steps needed (the actions) to make it happen. Ask yourself what has to take place to achieve the goal? Put a time frame on it. Once you set a goal and a time frame for doing it you can create a month by month and week by week and then day by day plan for doing it. If the goal is to lose 52 pounds in a year you can see that works out to a pound a week. That’s a 3500 calorie a week deficit. That’s a 500 calorie a day reduction from where you are now. That’s a loss of 2.28 ounces a day. That seems much more doable than fifty pounds. You can apply the same thing to the exercise aspect and say that a one mile walk will net you a calorie loss of between 65 and 100 depending on how much you weigh. Being aware of the actions you take and their net effect makes the goal measurable. You are not in some nebulous land where you can pretend that a donut is the equivalent of an apple. You’ve broken down the food, the daily intake, the minimum exercise needed to achieve it each day and in the process created personal responsibility.
Change is not easy. Nothing worthwhile is. It it’s a work goal.personal achievement goal or a desire for better health, having a plan will increase your odds of making it happen.
