The Realistic Promise

The best way to spring forward, or get organised, or move on is to make realistic promises which you can keep.

Realistic promises are small goals which you know you can achieve. Because they are small and achievable, it is more likely that they are kept. The more promises are kept, the more confidence someone feels. And suddenly all those small bitesize promises, start to add up to a sizeable impact.

At the heart of realistic promises is the usual SMART acronym that everyone should use in setting goals. Those of us who work, or who have worked, in any kind of corporate environment know the technique very well – it’s pretty much the go-to method for personal objective setting because it has such an outstanding track record.

The problem is that creating SMART goals is easier than it sounds but it is well worth it once you’ve worked through the tangle of it.

S is for Specific

All goals start with some kind of desire.

“I want to get healthy…” is a popular one.

OK. Great goal. But how? Specifically what you are going to do to get healthy?

I have a chronic illness which means health is a constant goal in my life. Sometimes though it feels overwhelming to tackle.

There’s my diet which is atrocious (take-outs are easy when I’m exhausted and in pain). I’m not overweight, but I am tipping towards the heavy end of ‘normal’ and could probably look to lose a few pounds. Then, there’s the lack of exercise and generally moving my body because my illness creates a pain mobility issue and, in all honesty, I was the girl who hated gym when I was school.

Not to mention, besides the physical, there is mental health to consider.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who wants to get healthy and looks at the list of things to do to achieve that and flinches at the mountain I have to climb.

The Promise technique though means starting with something small and achievable. Rather than the mountain, what one small thing can I do to improve my health?

Diet is the easy choice. I know the healthy choices I need to make, I just don’t usually make them. But choosing to promise that I’ll eat more fruit is specific.

M is for Measurable

This is the one which most people struggle with: how are you going to measure the goal? If we stick with my promise to eat more fruit, how much fruit? If it was a promise to do more exercise, how much more? Or to write every day, how many words or sentences?

I think you get the point.

You don’t want to create a whole industry to keep track. Online apps to keep track of food intake are all well and good, or digital watches and devices which track the number of steps or time you’ve exercised, but choose something which is simple and doesn’t cost the earth.

After all, if you’ve decided to exercise for twenty minutes, do you really need the latest digital device to tell you the time you started and the time you need to stop?

If I’m promising to eat more fruit, I’m going to promise to eat one piece or portion of fruit a day; an apple, an orange, a banana, small bowl of berries…all are importantly easy to measure.

A is for Attainable

I’ve heard the ‘A’ sometimes expressed as ‘actionable’ but the more traditional ‘A’ is attainable.

For our promise technique this one is very important. The idea here is to absolutely achieve the promise, not only to build confidence which happens with the satisfaction of achievement, but also to create that momentum – to take an important step to something bigger.

Companies like giving individuals stretch targets – something just outside or on the edge of someone’s comfort zone – “you think you can comfortably achieve eating one piece of fruit a day? Then set yourself, a goal of two pieces of fruit!” But that is not the objective here; the objective is that comfort. There is a certainty that the promise is completely and totally attainable.

Quite often, I’m not in the mood to eat more than one piece of fruit a day, but I know it’s easy enough to substitute my morning snack for fruit or to include it with a meal – berries in my oatmeal, a banana with toast, or apple slices alongside my sandwich at lunch.

When considering your promise, there should be a definite ‘I can achieve that easily’ thought that comes to mind.

R is for Relevant

This is the ‘why.’

Why are you doing this goal? I often advise the people I coach or manage to start with the ‘R’. What’s the purpose behind the goal? What relevance will its achievement have in your personal or professional life?

If there is no relevance, it’s unlikely that the goal will be achieved because there is no real reason to do it.

I want to eat more fruit because it improves my diet which enables me to be a healthier person and have a better quality of life. It's that better quality of life which is the ultimate goal.

T is for Time-bound

Setting a time boundary is a proven way to force a goal to be kept.

By Monday.

Within seven days.

Every day this week.

These are all examples of time-boundaries.

Again, the time-boundary should be attainable. If a task is going to realistically take several weekends to complete, stating that it will be complete by tomorrow is not going to make it magically happen.

A long time-boundary can also push the attainment too far into the future for it to feel achievable. By the end of next year feels like a long time away because it is a long time away.

If a task is going to take time to complete then breaking it down into several small chunks which can be achieved in stages will increase the likelihood of staying on track and building a record of achievement.

The Promise and the End Result

The promise I ended up with was: “I promise to eat one piece of fruit (or portion) every day for a week to improve my diet, be healthier and have a better quality of life.”

I made that promise back in February and stuck with it, achieving it easily. Happily, it enabled me to create a new daily habit which is also very easy for me to keep. A small step on my journey to better health, but an important one.

Moreover, it made me more confident about keeping my next promise – to move my body in any kind of exercise for five minutes every day. And then the next – to write a sentence every day. In March, I swapped to making my promise time-bound with ‘this week’ rather than daily. So far, so good.

Making small and achievable promises is a great technique for enabling real change. Do I have any final words of advice?

Keep it SMART, keep it simple, and keep it fun.