Do I have your attention now? Does throwing your goals into the garbage sound absolutely absurd? Does this idea go against everything you have heard from the so called "experts"? GOOD! Before you read any further, you have to make a promise to yourself to keep an open mind. That is all that I ask of you right now.

If you are anything like me, you have been told time and time again to establish and write down your goals and somehow (with a little hard work), they will come true. Well...I have some news for you. There is a fatal flaw in this process. The flaw is in the word "goal". When I looked up the word "flaw" in the dictionary, it said "the end toward which effort is directed ". Whenever I think of a goal, I think of it as something that I will work towards and will hopefully reach at some point in time. If I am able to accomplish it, wonderful; if I fall short, then that's OK too. Hey...at least I tried. Do you see where I am going with this? When we establish a goal, there is no psychological shift in our behavior. We continue behaving in the same manner, day in and day out, "hoping" to someday reach our goal. I don't know about you, but the last time I "hoped" I would accomplish something, I fell flat on my face. At the end of the day, we all have to eliminate the word "goal" from our vocabulary.

As many of you know, it's virtually impossible to make any change permanent if you take away something and do not replace it with something else. Because we have taken away the word "goal" from our vocabulary, it only makes sense for us to replace it with another word. I want you to try this for me. Every time you are tempted to use the word "goal", replace it with "expectation".

I love the word "expectation" because it truly raises the bar for us. If something is an expectation for us, we will automatically make a change in our behavior and we will raise our standards in order to reach this expectation. When we "expect" to do something, we will make an internal shift in our thinking and behavior in order to comply with the expectation.

Let's put this into a practical application. Take a goal that you set for yourself today. Let's say your goal is to run for 45 minutes straight without walking. For most people, this is a pretty lofty goal. Many of us would be happy running for 30 minutes and then calling it a day. We would say to ourselves, "It was a good try. Maybe I'll accomplish my goal tomorrow." Well guess what? I bet tomorrow will bring the exact same result. Rather than setting a goal to run for 45 minutes, say to yourself, "I expect to run for 45 minutes". See how that feels? When we expect ourselves to do something, our mind and bodies automatically shift to ensure we can reach this expectation. We are raising our standards, which is essential to creating lasting change. I bet when you expect to continually run for 45 minutes, you will do it without a problem because it's simply expected.

Remember, when you find yourself using the word "goal", mentally throw it in the garbage and replace it with the word "expectation". I know you will be extremely with the results.

Live Healthy and Be Happy,

Joe