Jonathan Steedman (00:01.155)

Hey food groupies, it's almost New Year's Eve resolution time. Did you know that? I'm recording this on the 20th of December, which I'm sure for the next kind of 10 days, people don't want to think about it, but I'm sure also swirling in the back of our minds are probably some ideas of goals and things that we want to achieve next year and new year, new me and all of that. And let me just say as well, actually, as a side note, I am definitely someone who used to...

I fell prey to the bashing of news resolutions. thought it was cool to jump on the bandwagon. But that's actually not very scientific. The funny thing is news resolutions, when done right, can actually be really effective. There's science showing that. There's something about something called a temporal landmark, i.e. that's why

We joke about diet starting on Monday. Goals start on the 1st of January. These are kind of important events, important temporal as in like landmarks in time. And so I just wanted to say, firstly, I'm sorry if I have ever bashed, if you've ever seen me bashing a new year's resolution, I was wrong. And secondly, if you've got new year's resolutions, hells yeah, that's excellent. The issue with new year's resolutions isn't the fact that you're trying to do them.

New Year or on the 1st of January, it's often with the resolution itself. It might be that the goal you're trying to achieve is a bit unreasonable, i.e. if my New Year's resolution was to run a marathon in March as someone who's never run more than 13 or 14 kilometers in my entire life, prepping for that in three months, particularly with kids' business and all that sort of stuff.

fairly unreasonable. So I would probably fail that New Year's resolution, but it wouldn't be because I made it on New Year's day. It would be because it was maybe a bit silly. And it might be similar. I want to lose 30 kilos by Easter. All of these things, we just want to make sure that these goals are, we want goals to be difficult for us. That's an important part of goal setting as well. I can't be, I want to lose two kilos by July. That goal seems a bit too easy. And when it's easy, we don't really get engaged.

Jonathan Steedman (02:29.166)

So you've to find that sweet spot of something that is a push, but isn't impossible. So that's the first kind of thing. the next really big thing that people get wrong about goal setting and it's something that we chat. So in the group, we go through something called the pivot plan, which is basically not a reference to that friends episode. I can't stand friends, but that scene with the couch where Ross is yelling pivot is fantastic. So fair play to them, but no.

It's not that, it's basically better goal setting. So we make sure that no one in that group is making that mistake of setting goals that are too easy or too hard. And then we also go through this process to help workshop something called an implementation intention, which is basically what I wanna take you through today. And then the next step as well, we come up with a whole bunch of, we basically bulletproof those goals, come up with some alternatives and things like that and help them dodge the bullet.

before they've even left the gun, essentially is the goal of that. So one piece of that pivot plan is these implementation intentions. And that's what we're going to chat about right now. Again, this is pulled from research. We have research and when people are using implementation intentions, they are much more likely to achieve their goal. Or even if they don't achieve it, they get way closer to it than they otherwise would, which I think is also really important. We can get very binary in our

approach to goal setting and goal success. IE, if you have a, I'm using weight a lot, sorry, just because that's where my head's at with the group. if you, let's say you have a goal of 10 kilos and you only lose eight kilos, technically you failed, right? But I would argue that that's still fantastic. So we do need to make sure that we're being reasonable and fair with our assessment of goal success. But anyhow, so even the people who weren't quote unquote successful got the eight kilos.

instead of the one kilo, right? And basically what they did, when you're setting a goal, and I see this all the time, you need to be specific, you need to be detailed, not just with the goal itself. I'm not talking about SMART goals, they're not actually how I want you to set health and fitness goals, they're not good for that. But with your plan of how you're going to achieve that. Now, you don't have to write like a full essay on how you're going to achieve it, but...

Jonathan Steedman (04:52.46)

I see it all the time when I'm talking to people, they say things like, wanna lose weight, I wanna get healthier, I wanna feel better, I wanna go to the gym more, I wanna move more, I wanna exercise more. All of these are a good start, right? They're kind of the global thing that you wanna achieve. And so it's important that you have that North Star, I think is what a lot of people refer to it too, but you have that overall goal, but you need to then be a little bit more specific about what that looks like, okay? So maybe the next step is I don't, the study I'll reference actually.

I don't wanna go, I'm not gonna go to the gym more, I'm not gonna exercise more. I'm not even gonna go to the gym three times a week. That's still better. So again, we've got another layer of specificity there. So that's good. But if you wanna keep that up even further, I'm gonna go to the gym at 4 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This is the gym that I'm gonna go to. I've got my gym clothes. I've put it in my calendar.

I have books to classes or I have an idea. I've got a program of, so I know what I do, I'm gonna do when I'm gonna get there. And there's really no like, nothing left to chance there. Now, of course, there'll be times where you get held up at work and your kid's sick or you're sick and you don't go, but you've at least started with a plan that is a lot more robust and has a lot more detail to it. And I absolutely find the more detail we have in those plans, the more likely you are to stick to it. So I guess if you want to take one thing away from-

today. It is that I encourage you to be more specific with your goals and to build a specific plan. I'm saying specific a lot. Here we are. Maybe I'll say Pacific ones just to get get to you. But the more specific you can be with your targets. And like like that that example of don't just do three times per week. When are you going? Where are you going? What are you going to do when you get there? If

You have goals of, wanna feel better, I wanna look better, I wanna run faster, I wanna, like, that's great, but make sure you take this next step of, okay, what does that actually look like each week for me to do that? Book it in the calendar, talk to the people around you so they're aware of what you're trying to do, and you're be way more successful with your goals this time around. Awesome. Thanks, team. Merry Christmas, happy new year. I'll chat to you soon.