Happy New Year!
It's 2014 and I'm certainly ready for the fresh start and new beginnings that the turn of the calendar brings. How about you?
Goal Snowball
Pre-Vanessa, when I lived with my cousin, I used to come home from boot camp and sometimes I'd have trouble winding down from a high energy night of coaching so I'd watch t.v.. There was this financial coach, Dave Ramsey, who used to cut up credit cards and throw them across the room and I thought it was entertaining. Since I was a new business owner who needed to learn how to run the behind the scenes aspects of my business, his money management and budgeting lessons were useful. One of the things he talked about was a Debt Snowball and the way it worked was if you had debt, instead of doing the logical thing and paying off your debt with the highest interest 1st, do the behavioral thing and pay off debts from smallest to largest 1st. His reasoning was that all of the little wins you would get from doing the easiest thing 1st, would accumulate and get you excited and help you to build momentum. Each time you paid off a debt you'd combine that smaller debt's payment with the next smallest debts payment and continue paying it off until it was done and then moving on to the next one and so on and so forth.
I didn't have any debt at this time outside of my mortgage because I was launching a "bootstrapped" business, but I loved the simplicity and the behavioral approach to it. I could see the excitement one would feel from these little wins and how the snowball habit would lead to other successes and put a person on a new path of winning. Until recently I had never thought of applying the same snowball to saving for things or setting personal goals, but it just make sense, at least to me.
Then, Dr. John Berardi, the author of Precision Nutrition, started talking about having his clients work on the smallest habit 1st. The kind of habit that is so easy that you would give it a confidence level of 9 out of 10 on a 1-10 scale with 1 being no confidence and 10 being supreme confidence. He has his clients work on this task for 2 weeks and then if they have a 90% success rate, they move on to the next habit. Pretty neat, but I still didn't put the two together.
Until, Alwyn Cosgrove, the owner of one of the top 10 gyms in North America (Results Fitness in CA), and one of the best fat loss & performance coaches, authors and live presenters I've ever learned from conveniently introduced me to the Goal Snowball with an article he wrote on his newsletter.
Goal Snowball Exercise
1. Goal. What's your health, body composition and/or performance goal you want to achieve? Write this down.
2. List Habits. What are the behaviors, habits and/or intentions you need to change, add or delete from your lifestyle? Write these out now.
3. List Easy Habits 1st. Now list these behaviors, habits or intentions from easiest to most challenging.
4. Compliance. Now look at the 1st habit. Do you have a confidence level of 9 out of 10 that you can do that habit for 12 days out of the next 14? If yes, that's your habit. If not, make that habit easier until you have a 9 out of 10 confidence level. Then record your success for each day / week and then tally your results to see if you were <, = or > 90%.
Goal Snowball Example
Step 1 - Outcome (Goal): Be athletic and feel confident while playing beach and watersports in a bathing suit during a fall beach trip to a tropical climate.
Step 2 - Habits / Behaviors / Intentions: list in no particular order as they come to your mind.
• Strength train 1x/wk
• Do 125/190min cardio (male/female).
• Drink 12 / 16oz water (female / male) after going to bathroom upon waking.
Step 3 - Habits / Behaviors / Intentions: listed easiest to most challenging.
1. Do 125/190min cardio (male/female).
2. Strength train 1x/wk
3. Drink 12 / 16oz water (female / male) after going to bathroom upon waking.
Habit #1: Do 125/190min cardio (male/female).
M T W Th F Sa Su
Wk1 30/45 0/0 30/45 Off 30/45 0/30 Off
Wk2 35/45 0/25 35/45 Off 35/45 35/30 Off
Compliance Rate Male: (90+140) / (125+125) = 230 / 250 or 92%
Compliance Rate Female: (165 + 190) / (190 +190) = 355 / 380 or 93%
if 90% move to next habit. If less than 90%, make habit simpler and repeat again. Once 90% compliance is achieved, move to original habit.
Habit #2: Strength train 1x/wk
M T W Th F Sa Su
Wk1 X
Wk2 X
Compliance Rate: 2 / 2 = 100%
And then the Goal Snowball continues on. Each time you hit 90% compliance with your habit after two weeks of practicing, you add to it another habit that's just a bit more challenging. If you have a relapse, you just take a step back and make the habit easier. See the attached pdf for a more complete example and blank sheet you can use. Give it a shot. It might help you to be more successful with your goals.
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| Speaking of goals. We've got 6 people (Christine M, Ceci D, Lena L., Sean C, Amy L and Carol V) entered into the Change Your Body Challenge which begins with Private Measurements, this Saturday, Jan 4, 2014 from 6-9am. If you haven't signed up yet (ahem, Kim C, Quyen C, Krista K, ...), what are you waiting for? Go here to sign up.
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| Final reminder. Tomorrow's the day I give our final head count to Bond for the 2014 Celebrate Change party. It's a Last Meal Kick Off Party to launch the start of the Change Your Body Challenge. It's a celebration of our 5 year anniversary of helping people make lifestyle changes and it's a chance to see everyone dressed hot and having fun as we celebrate with like minded peers. Last chance. Sign Up Now! Click here!
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| Well that's all for now. I wish you a great Twenty - Fourteen and I hope you found the Goal Snowball useful.
Cheers and if you're in the Boston area, and find yourself shoveling snow tomorrow or possibly having fun throwing snowballs. Consider how much fun it might be to follow a Goal Snowball.
Yours changing lives,
Mike Alves
p.s. Sometimes a start date, a deadline, a prize and competition can bring out your best. It's not necessarily about winning, just finding a way to dig deeper with your efforts. Join the challenge here.
p.p.s. We've got 48 guests attending Saturday night. Why don't you sign up with a friend and make it 50.
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