State your goal publicly– the journaling failure.

On February 5th, I just didn’t have the will to force myself to write more free-form introspective tripe pulled from my Prompt Box. On February 6th, I just completely forgot, and the 7th, even though I made a mental note to resume my journaling practice, I never got around to it. By the 8th, I’d just completely given up and had no desire to resume the next week. I’d like to use my two-week long bout with the flu as an excuse for not resuming on February 11th, but really, I just didn’t want to.

I found myself avoiding blogging completely the week of the 18th because I didn’t want to admit my failure. So, not only did I fail, but I procrastinated on admitting said failure. Kind of pathetic if you think about it.

Secret goal failure — not really a failure. More a postponement.

I actually was successful at my more secret goal. I kept up the practice until Saturday, February 9, even if I didn’t “track” it. I exercised four times that week, and only when Saturday’s extremely strenuous workout made me succumb to the flu with only three hours’ advance warning did I temporarily give up. Still, the buildup and the prior workouts left me addicted to exercise, and I ended up suffering major withdrawal pangs when I could finally get out of bed on February 14th. I’m doing a modified “schedule” this week: yoga twice and the boxing-ish bootcamp workout this Saturday.

Conclusions? Not what you’d think.

Goal-tracking sucks. I’ve never been good at keeping any kind of routine tracking going for a long period. Never. So, I’m not surprised I couldn’t keep up with even the simplest method. I liked my first week of Xs, but they didn’t exactly motivate me. I didn’t care about not having a second. I usually keep track of progress mentally, so that’s not a particularly surprising conclusion for yours truly. Adding another habit, the tracking habit, to the additional two I was trying to establish was stupid, honestly.

Journaling isn’t something that’s actually important to me. In fact, it seems actively toxic. Some people find journaling therapeutic. Some people find that writing things down helps them get their problems out of their heads. I’ve always used writing things down as a method for remembering dates, facts and events, not as a way to clear mental clutter. I naturally ruminate over everything. Writing down my ruminations just added more introspective claptrap to my already self-paralyzing analytical process. What actually made me stop journaling was the topic on February 4th: “What 5 things do you want to do before it’s too late?” I already spend too much time thinking my impending death and running out of time, but this had me actively contemplating how I’d die. Not exactly fun stuff.

I’m trying to create a new habit in addition to my “artificial” experimental habit that’s actually important to my well-being. I’ve already written about my early forays into the realm of cooking; I’m trying to gain more control of my horrible diet. That’s far more important to both my short-term and long-term health than is writing in a journal. So, maybe I’m suffering from habit-forming overload, which is apparently a real concern.

Is setting a specific goal really something that should be done in the first place? This is something I’ve really been wondering about. Every last bit of motivational writing you come across talks about the values of setting specific time-based goals, and making sure they’re realistic (SMART goals, anyone?). I’ve never had a lot of luck with that approach. Somehow, no matter how specific and how “realistic” I think I’m being when I set a goal, I’m always way off, and I end up being discouraged for not perfectly achieving what I set out to do. I find I’m better off aiming for a loose future objective, and making subtle course-correcting tweaks as I go along.

Cognitive reframing?

My “secret” goal of exercising an hour (at least) four times a week is one that I’ve actually had to step away from as a “goal.” My best success in the past has come in finding disciplines I enjoy, and looking at exercise as another way of playing. At this point, my theoretical exercise schedule (and, oh how I hate that word!), is pretty rigid with four separate exercise classes, something that could drive me to insanity if I think about it that way.

I’ve already mentioned that I loathe too much structure and too much “tracking,” I think, and if I haven’t specifically, there it is. Structure to me is death. It’s routine. It’s confining and painful and the very antithesis of enjoyable. Tracking after the fact is more routine and structure added to my life. Four separately scheduled events, then, adds that much more “routine.” It helps that I enjoy said events, but if I think about them too much in scheduling terms, I find I don’t enjoy them as much, even if I objectively do.

The brain’s a funny organ, isn’t it? You can trick it and manipulate it into doing anything if you really try. That’s what I’ve been doing on the exercise front so that I keep enjoying myself. Instead of “going to classes” that happen at “specific times,” I tell myself, It’s time to go play! Suddenly the dull routine of changing clothes and driving through sometimes awful traffic to arrive at said classes doesn’t seem quite so onerous. I put on my play-clothes and I sit myself in my play-car, and I sing along with old 80’s songs as I’m stuck at long traffic lights because it’s fun-time. And then I’m sweating because I’m playing, not because I’m engaging in strenuous physical activity.

Well, let it be said early and often that I’m an individual in need of improvement. A lot of it. I’d like to think I’m no different than the rest of us, but, really, who knows? Either way, I have a few habit-establishment goals I’m trying to accomplish, and I’ve failed at a few of them more than once. So, what’s the best way to ensure success? Heck if I know.

There are two separate schools of thought: one that you should hold yourself accountable to the universe so you can keep on track with your new habits, and another that suggests keeping quiet might actually be the true secret to success.

Which one actually works? Let’s see. But first, a little background:

State your intention! Be accountable!

About.com has one of the best quick sum-ups I’ve read on setting intentions. Essentially, the process is boiled down to four steps:

1. Get clear about something you want and write it down.

2. Share your intention with someone in a way that will supportively hold you accountable to taking action.

3. Do something today to demonstrate your commitment to your intention.

4. Acknowledge that you did what you said you would and then, take the next step.

-Marcia Weider, The Power of Intention – Four Steps For Setting An Intention

If you read a lot of the personal development blogs out there, you’ll find that setting intentions to achieve goals or establish new habits is very popular advice. I’ve honestly never tried it; as an introvert, one of my least favorite things to do when socializing is to talk about myself and my accomplishments. I also like to think I can pride myself on my self-sufficiency. So, suffice to say, this isn’t an approach I’ve ever used, or I’ve ever seen myself using.

Until now.

Keep quiet if you actually want to succeed!

Lifehacker, needless to say, advises the opposite.

A more detailed examination of the whys of keeping goals to yourself actually seems a bit counter-intuitive, and the exact opposite of why I’d think you’d want to stay silent. Personally, this is my more favored approach, mostly because I hate looking like an idiot when I don’t succeed. And I really, really, really hate admitting weakness to the external world, even to my friends.

But that’s not the problem. This is:

Announcing your plans to others satisfies your self-identity just enough that you’re less motivated to do the hard work needed.

In 1933, W. Mahler found that if a person announced the solution to a problem, and was acknowledged by others, it was now in the brain as a “social reality”, even if the solution hadn’t actually been achieved.

So, your mind thinks you’re already through, that you’re already successful. You’ve already completed the action or established the habit, even if you’ve just primed yourself to take action in your mind. Your social reality is your true external reality.

I can buy this, completely. I have a nasty tendency to think through all angles of any problem I’ve approached, and by assessing all of the possible actions I can take, or by establishing a mental plan, I think I’ve completed all of the necessary external work to solve it. Besides, doing the actual work is boooring. Anything that assists my brain in deceiving itself that the work is already done is a bad, bad, bad thing. Horrible. Terrible. You get the picture.

So, which actually works?

We’re about to find out. Beginning today, I’m launching a personal experiment to see which approach is best with two habits I’m hoping to establish.

Writing journal entries five times a week.
Another goal I’ve failed at each time I’ve tried: I’m looking to repeat this activity four times a week.

To track this, I’ll be using the ultra-simple “Don’t Break the Chain” method. The journal entries will be indicated with a red X, and the other habit with a blue X in my lovely calendar.

Pretty, isn’t it?

Why, “Don’t Break the Chain?” I stink at actual documentation. This appeals to my utter loathing of writing things down about as much as can reasonably be accommodated if I’m going to actually track anything. Seriously, just using typical recording methods most people use to track anything requires a whole new habit to form. Ugh.

Ideally, you’ll see nine X marks, four red and five blue at the end of a successful week.

Setting my journaling intention

I intend to write for ten minutes, five times a week using my journaling program. I’ll be using Digital Diary, a Windows 8 app. My subjects will come from my journal jar: a plastic reach-in tub that holds about 200+ prompts I printed out from various websites.

Just reach on in and get a handful of insight!

The advantages to this habit are supposedly to gain inner insight, to introspect (as if I don’t do enough of that already!), and to gain a greater grasp of what makes you tick. Supposedly, miracles can happen if you write enough, or your life gels, and all of a sudden the universe makes sense or something. Either way, you’re supposed to get something beyond your usual ordinary perspective by writing about yourself regularly. Should be amusing, methinks. If any insight arises from this habit, I’ll be sure to share it.

And in a few minutes, I’ll make my first entry into my new journal. I’ll report my success (or not) on Monday, February 4. If I fail, yell at me virtually in the comments section below.

…and here we go!

For further reading: Shhh! Keeping Quiet May Help You Achieve Your Goals by Derek and The Power of Intention: Four Steps For Setting An Intention by Marcia Weider

Eternal Randomness

A story in the hand is worth two tips in the bushes.

Tag Archives: habits

Goal Setting Experiment Update: Total Failure