Whether it is your exercise routine, diet or a certain project, it can be disheartening to feel like you’ve taken 5 steps forward and then 3 steps back.

You see I recently got sick (sore throat, heavy head and runny nose). This meant no lifting weights, running, dancing or cycling for 2 weeks. Nothing.

Up until then I had been a “gym junkie” (my brother’s words, not mine) – exercising 5 to 6 times a week on average to increase my fitness and endorphin levels.

So as you can imagine, 2 weeks off hurt!

In my lethargic state I thought -

“I’ve lost it…all that hard work for nothing. What’s the point? It will take me months to get back to where I was before”.

But then I learnt about “The Tim Tam Philosophy” which entirely changed my way of thinking about the situation.

In the book “Turbocharge your writing”, Hugh Kearns and Maria Gardiner discuss the Tim Tam Philosophy to illustrate what happens to humans when they are on a roll and then they lose their momentum. They state -

“If we use the example of healthy eating – let’s say you decide that you are going to eat healthily now and cut out junk food. And you are going along just fine, then at afternoon tea they have an open packet of Tim Tams on the table. And you think “Oh well, I’ve been going so well, I’ll just have that broken half sitting on the plate”.

But of course once you’ve had that, you have to have another one. Then before you know it you’ve had six…and you think “It’s all ruined now. There’s no point in trying to eat well now” and you eat the rest of the packet. When in reality, even if you had eaten the whole packet you could have said “Well that was a bit of a blip – it’s back to normal now. No more Tim Tams for me”.

Just because you’ve had a little break or a minor slip up doesn’t mean all your efforts have been a waste of time. Tomorrow is a new day and you can choose to behave differently. You need to put what happened behind you (it’s in the past and there’s no point dwelling on it) and take action to move forward in the direction you want to go.

The Tim Tam Philosophy doesn’t just apply to healthy eating but can apply to any area of our lives (e.g. our studies, projects, managing our time better and exercise).

What else can you do to help you to get back on the bandwagon? Below are a few suggestions.

Go gently on yourself

Whether it is a workout at the gym or a project you have lost momentum on, go gently on yourself and ease into the activity. The last thing you want to do is dive straight into the activity in a desperate frenzy.

A couple of ways to ease gently into the task are -

1. Do something you enjoy or the most interesting part first to help lift your spirits and get you into the groove of things.

2. Work in small chunks to begin with. Set your alarm for 8 minutes and tell yourself that all you need to do is work for 8 minutes. If you find that it’s an uphill battle then give yourself permission to take a break when the alarm goes off.

Make it fun

Can you make the activity more enjoyable than it would usually be? Put on some upbeat music? Involve a friend? Go to a location that energises your spirit (a café or a cosy, clean, beautiful environment)?

The first few sessions easing back into the particular activity are often the hardest, so you want to make them as pleasant as possible.

Plan it out – schedule it into your diary

Decide on what you want to do and when you want to do it and then put it in your diary to remind yourself to take action. You may want to do this just for the day or the entire week (e.g. plan out all your meals or exercise classes).

By following the Tim Tam philosophy, I have been to the gym everyday since recovering from my cold. Whilst the workouts haven’t been easy, I’ve been having fun and I’m slowly regaining my fitness and strength.

In what areas of you life (if any) have you fallen off the bandwagon recently? Were there any strategies you used to help you get back on track?

‘SMART’ represents a set criteria to help you evaluate your goals. Goal setters are asked to consider ‘Is your goal specific? Measurable? Attainable? Realistic? and timely (has a deadline)?

S = Specific
M = Measurable
A = Attainable
R = Realistic
T = Timely

Personal development gurus and teachers tell us time and time again “Goals should be SMART”. I can appreciate this advice, especially after recently stumbling upon a list of goals I had set for myself several years ago. I couldn’t help but cringe at how vague these goals were (e.g. “Enjoy life more” and “Save money more effectively”). It was of no surprise to discover that I hadn’t achieved half the things on my list of goals.

But quite frankly the SMART criteria just doesn’t do it for me anymore.

I have got to the stage where I find this formula for success (or at least the way it is phrased and presented) uninspiring.

The SMART criteria fails to excite my imagination and leaves me feeling like goal setting is nothing but a boring chore similar to scrubbing the floor or filling out an application form.

At the heart of it, goal setting is about your dreams. It’s about going for something that would really change your life if you achieved it. It’s about breathing life into areas that have gone dead/stale or you may have given up on.

David Rock in his book ‘Personal Best’ writes about how to set goals worth going for. Rock goes beyond the stock standard SMART criteria and discusses some other nifty strategies to help beef up your goals.

1. Don’t be conceptual, work towards a project with a real conclusion

Back in 2007, I set this goal for myself “Be more creative/create contemporary art”. Nice idea, but do you think I did this? No. Besides totally abandoning and failing to meet the SMART criteria, this goal had no real end point. What was lacking was an exciting project to work towards.

David Rock suggest that a better goal to set would be “Have an exhibition” (even if it’s just with friends and family). If you want to get fitter, instead of a goal of “Get fitter” you could set “Salsa dance for one hour non stop”.

2. Go for goals that extend you but are still achievable

David Rock encourages us to extend ourselves and to be open to being challenged and learning new skills. He believes the best goals are the ones you may not know how to achieve but you have this feeling that no matter what you’ll be able to work it out if you apply yourself.

I have always felt restricted by the ‘Achievable’ criteria when it comes to the A in the SMART goal setting criteria. I used to think to myself when evaluating my goals “I think this is achievable but what if I’m being overly ambitious? What if I can’t actually do this?”. There was always this feeling of holding back and not fully going for something if there was even the smallest doubt I wouldn’t be able to achieve it.

Alternatively, there were times when I set totally outrageous goals such as “Be earning $100,000 a year” (in my final year of university), only to later look back on that goal and think “What on earth was I thinking?”

In relation to setting achievable goals David Rock states –

“Sometimes you might start out with a goal that you think is achievable, then a few weeks into it you realise it isn’t, it’s okay to change your goals at that time….there’s nothing wrong with giving something all you’ve got, then discovering you need to change course mid-stream”.

I find this idea helps to take the pressure off setting goals perfectly. There really is no reason to hold yourself back when you know you can stop, re-assess and change your goals at any point in time.

3. Keep your goals short and snappy

Since you want to be taking action towards your goals every day, you want to be thinking of your goals and saying them to yourself on a daily basis. In order to do this, David Rock tells us to keep them “short and snappy”. He also mentions that “the best goals are around five words, not long statements”. Instead of “Pay off my HECS debt and car loan” a snappier goal could be “To be debt free” or “To love my bank statements” as Rock suggests.

4. Give your goal a visual element

Many of us respond well to visual images, so we should try to capture each of our goals in striking visual images that moves us. For example, ‘Wear a bikini to the beach’ is much more powerful than ‘Lose 10 kilograms’.

If you respond well to other senses (e.g. smell and taste) try to tap into those. Rock gives the examples of “live where I can smell the ocean” and “hear my song played on the radio”

5. Give your goals a 90 day (3 month) deadline

You won’t be able to achieve all of your goals in a 90 day period, but significant action can certainly be taken to bring you closer towards achieving your bigger goals. David Rock states -

“I have found that 90 days is enough time to really make an impact on people’s lives, but short enough to maintain motivation and excitement”

On your wall calendars and in your diary, schedule in a 90 day countdown for your goals.

6. Take your time creating your goals

We live in a world that is obsessed by speed (fast food, faster computers and internet connection, etc). Perhaps this explains why many of us get easily frustrated when we fail to come up with goals in a few minutes that inspire us. We want instant inspiration.

The fact of the matter is that setting great goals worth going for takes time. You may need to write your goal down, put it aside and then come back to it a few days later.