The "Anti-Goal" Board Challenge

I know this might sound a little backwards, since part of motivating yourself should be to constantly remind yourself of reasons you CAN reach your goals. Lots of people make goal boards or lists of reasons why they want to reach their goals to serve as a reminder when they need a little boost. Seriously, I'm all for this, as it can be a great tool to keep you consistently motivated to keep going when times get tough. But have you ever considered making a list of things that could potentially stop you from getting where you want to be? 

We live in a society full of "What if's" and "I wish"'s and we often have a tendency not to be very pro-active about the things that we want. If I had a nickel for every time someone came up to me and said "I wish I could lose weight like you did, but..." I'd have a TON of nickels (thought I was gonna come up with something wittier than that, huh? Sorry to disappoint you - thought I'd take a straightforward approach on this one!)  :)

Stick with me for a minute and I'll explain my line of thinking...Since these "I wish, but"'s keep coming up so often, it would make sense to address them head on, rather than treating them like the giant elephant in the room. The truth is life is always going to try to get in your way. There are always going to be obstacles and the only thing you can do about it is to push through it and work your way around them. If you just sit back and wait for them not to be there, you're going to be waiting around your whole life!

So, a little off topic, but I'm going to tell you a story. I once had a bad day at work (yes, I like my job that much that it's only happened once! - haha!) Everything just seemed to be going wrong - from being late (that's definitely happened more than once!) to not being able to make my clients happy to hitting traffic on the way home. I was in such a funk when I got to the gym that night that one of the staff members actually pulled me aside and asked me what had been so bad about my day that I was so angry. I was 100% prepared to go on an all-out self-pity rant and let loose everything that had gone wrong that day...and then nothing came out sounding quite as bad as I meant it to. All of the problems that had gotten me all stirred up throughout the day sounded...sort of silly when I said them out loud. It was then that I realized that sometimes a problem can seem monumentally unmanageable in your head and then when you actually address it, it's not really so bad. 

This brings me to the "Anti-Goal" idea. When you have a goal in mind and you start thinking about all of the obstacles in your way, it can seem impossible to reach that goal. But if you break each of these obstacles down and really face them, the task of beating them becomes a lot less daunting. All you need to do is write down what your specific challenge is and then brainstorm the most obvious, logical, realistic solutions. It differs from a Goal Board in that when you make a Goal Board you are using emotions to fuel your motivation to reach your goal. "I'm going to reach this goal because I want..."  The problem is that emotions are sometimes fleeting and they won't always be there to keep you inspired. With an "Anti-Goal" board, you are coming up with a tangible explanation of reasons you can't possibly fail! You're shutting down every excuse before it has a chance to shut you down. 

Here are a few examples of things on my "Anti-Goal" Board:

Here is my challenge for you: Make an "Anti-Goal" Board and see what you come up with! You might surprise yourself with the solutions you find once you look at your own personal obstacles in writing. Post them on my Facebook if you feel comfortable doing so and/or let me know if this has worked for you!