New Year, New Start

(I originally started this post at the beginning of January when it would have made more sense. Oh well...)

The title of this post refers to two things: the fact that this is a new blog for me and, perhaps more relevantly, the tendency many have at the beginning of a new year to embark on new endeavours and behaviours in order to change themselves or their circumstances for the better.

The desire for betterment and edification is a laudable one but the tendency to failure sooner rather than later is, and I speak from personal experience here, discouragingly commonplace. Personally, most Mondays last year seemed to be cast in my own mind as New Starts. You know how it goes, “Next week I'll eat better/exercise more/start Ulysses again/update my CV.... “and on and on.

In a previous blog I resisted writing about goal setting because I think that it's a crowded marketplace and, if I'm honest, I wasn't sure what I could contribute that is new. However, following a Facebook post about goal setting that I commented on I started to think about my experience, beliefs and ideas around the formulation of useful goals, goals that truly take us in the direction in which we want to go. I also began to think about the process of goal setting in itself; what do we do in order to arrive at a set of objectives that we believe are worthwhile or will make us better/richer/fitter/stronger/more desirable (delete as applicable)? Further, how does (can) the process of setting goals make the achievement of our desired state more likely?

The Tao of Insoo

Over fifteen years ago I had the good fortune to be introduced to Solution Focused Therapy and receive training from a brilliant man, and fantastic communicator, Bill O'Connell. SFT helped me in my work with people who used drugs and alcohol and, taking Bill's sage advice, I consumed as much information around the subject as I could find, collecting articles from journals, buying books and videos tapes(remember them?) and devouring them. When the opportunity for me to train for a year with Insoo Kim Berg, one of the originators of Solution Focused practice I jumped at the chance. Insoo and her husband Steve de Shazer 'invented' SFT, or rather Insoo and her clients developed it and Steve wrote about and codified it.

As a little, old Korean woman (her words) Insoo felt that she could 'get away' with some things in the therapy room that others in her world – overwhelmingly White and American – could not; that is, she could try new and different things to try to help her clients get to where they wanted to be. So much of what I learnt from her lectures, discussions and assignments continues to be helpful in my life to date. Thank you Insoo.

But let's cut to the chase.

A key part of the Solution Focused model that I learnt from Insoo was in relation to goal setting and useful goals. Having taken from and added to it over the last ten years I've got a model of goal setting process that I teach people when I train them in Solution Focused practice. I hope it's useful, I think it is as I've found it to be so and it is based on what Insoo found to work and that which I have also found to be helpful.

What makes a 'useful' goal?

Well, what is a useful goal? I'd argue that a useful goal is one that though the process of arriving at it will enhance your chances of achieving your desired state or circumstances. What? If the process of defining a goal causes me to give a great deal of thought to it and causes me to work on it in an efficacious way that's more useful than just stating “I want to lose weight”.

So, keeping that in mind, let's consider the key characteristics of useful goals as defined by Insoo and co-author Scott Miller.

• A beginning step rather than an end state.
  In the next month I want to lose five pounds Vs. I want to be two stone lighter.
• Observable/Tangible
  I will be able to deadlift 300lbs Vs. I will be stronger.
• The presence rather than the absence of something.
  I will be...Vs. I won't be...
• Important to the person trying to achieve them.
  My agenda rather than that of another.
• Realistic.
  Obviously
• Achievable.
  Otherwise what's the point?
• Involve Hard Work
  What? This quality helps us build a positive "face" and protects and promotes our feelings of dignity and self-worth. It allows us to own personal responsibility for achieving the goal while having a self-respecting place to fall back to in case of failure. (I didn't write that but essentially I take it to mean that the sense of achievement is greater and more worthwhile if the result of our labours didn't come easily. Also, if I fail at something I thought was going to be easy, my self-worth and belief will probably take a bigger knock than if I struggle with something that I knew was going to be hard work.)

So, we've now got the criteria for a useful goal, a goal that by its very make-up is more achievable, but how do we arrive at such a useful and intelligently stated goal when we start out with a vague pronouncement of righting all our flaws?

We ask (ourselves) questions. Is our goal:

Important? How come this goal is important to you?

What difference will it make if you achieve this?

Observable? If you achieved your goal what would I notice that was different? Who would notice your achievement first? What would they notice?

A beginning step? What's the first step that you could take that would tell you that you're on the path to achieving your goal? If we meet again in a week's time what will you tell me that you've done that tells you that you're closer to achieving your goal?

Realistic/achievable? On a scale of 0 to 10, how achievable is this goal for you? Is it something that others have done before? Have you got/can you get the necessary resources?

A presence rather than an absence? Don't tell me what you won't be doing tell me what you will.

Not: I won't miss any of my classes. But: I will attend three classes a week.

Once we've got this stuff sorted we can ask further questions that help to build a detailed picture of what we're trying to do. This can help to increase the chances of achieving that which we set out to achieve:

How confident are you that you can do this? What would help to increase your confidence?

Who can help with this? What can they do to help? Who else can help? How?

Have you done anything like this before? How did that go? What/who helped then? How?

You get the idea.

Now, this stuff works best if someone else is asking the questions, aside from anything else they will have a different view of your goal than you do. Even if that person's conception of your goal is inaccurate, it could be helpful to hear questions from a new perspective.

However, you can ask yourself the questions. Bill O'Connell said that he knew this stuff was helpful when he tried it on himself with good results. If you're going to try that I'd recommend asking the questions out loud (no, really) and writing down the results of your work in a kind of plan format. Try to push yourself as a coach would do and allocate yourself a decent bit of time to put this to the test.

Finally two things:

If you do try it yourself please let me know how you got on, either through the comments or via email.

If you'd like some coaching based on the Solution Focused model, let me know through email. I'm up for providing some freebies.

Good luck and Godspeed!