See, face for radio...
All the best bits from my Sound Advice slot on BBC Essex 24 Jan 2012. Many thanks to Mark Punter for being a great host. Warning: Contains me…
Intro To First Know What You Want
Three Reasons It’s Hard To Know What You Want
Start Small / Work On What You Don’t Want
Susan called: “What do you do when the people around you mock your attempts to change?”
Grateful thanks to a reader who emailed me:
I just finished reading ‘First, Know What You Want’ in Kindle format. I’ve just posted a positive review on Amazon, but I also wanted to say thanks to you directly for writing it, it’s got the potential to really change people’s lives for the better, including my own, and you should be very proud of your work.
Get yours:
Plump coach gives diet tips in local newspaper
Thanks to Braintree & Witham Times who featured my tips for diet success in 2012:
Andrew Halfacre, life coach and author of First Know What You Want, said: Set yourself small goals. The big thing that stops effective slimming is people setting the bar far too high and then getting all disappointed when they don’t hit it.
Once you are getting all your small goals, then you can go after the bigger ones.
Second – set habit goals instead of target goals. A target goal like losing two stone will rarely work. It’s better to set a habit goal like walking for 20 mins a day or drinking a glass of water before every meal.
Weight loss comes from new habits, not setting targets.
Photographer wisely decides to focus on the Polar Bear
You hear a lot about the press and media but Steven Russell at EADT could not have been more helpful and friendly – and he’d actually read the book. Although in the bonkers world that is local newspapers the article is not online so I can’t link to it or push people towards their website. Guess they are still struggling to come to terms with the digital revolution.
UPDATE
Sometimes you get what you want. The feature is now online. Well worth a read.
Beardy bloke holds book awkwardly while sucking in double chin...
Many thanks to the lovely folk at Essex Chronicle for putting this together.
Diane often has the experience of being trapped in her house. She has no problem with getting to work and then getting back home to fix dinner but after dinner and on the weekend she finds herself sitting around the house, itching to get away, to do something. By the time she climbs into bed at night the itch is still there, and another day has been wasted in fretting and wondering why she doesn’t do something.
Greg’s love life is a series of relationships that seemed like good ideas at the time but invariably turned out to be dissatisfying. Soon he realizes that the relationship is over, but he seems unable to do anything about ending it. Instead, he remains tangled, wondering how he got into the mess in the first place.
Terry is an expert on why things went wrong. He has a job he hates, a run-down house he ignores, and a relationship with his wife that is a big disappointment to him. He ponders his situation often. Just ask him and he’ll explain why he’s in the fix he’s in. He can even tell you why he hasn’t been able to do anything about it during the last fifteen years. And, if pressed, he’ll concede that knowing why hasn’t made him any happier.
Diane, Greg, and Terry are stuck. It is not that they don’t have ample reason to “leave” where they are. It is just that they don’t know where to go. In fact, they don’t even know that they need to know where to go. As it is now, their fates and fortunes are decided by the intercession of chance and the world. If Diane gets out tonight it will probably be because someone thought to call her up and invite her out. If Greg gets out of his present relationship it will be because it turned so rancid it got up and walked off on its own. And if Terry gets into another line of work it will be because a friend offers him one.
Most of us have little trouble knowing what we don’t want. And a lot of our precious time and energy goes into figuring out “why” we have what we don’t want. It’s as though we have been dropped off at a crossroads in the middle of a wasteland, and we sit down by the road to ponder how it is that we got there.
Meanwhile, cars are whizzing by, heading off in various directions. If we’re lucky, maybe someone will decide to stop and offer us a lift. But will it be a lift to just another wasteland?
Click To Listen – 14 min – Right Click To Download
4 January 2011 2.30pm – my first ever radio interview – somewhat rushed but a fair summary of the book. Thanks to everyone at BBC Essex – super friendly people.
Many thanks to Stonewriters who made me this beautiful Polar Bear on a stone. Visit their great site for more beautiful things on stone. They know what they want.
Not yet...
Sigh.
I’m always torn at this time of year as I see the multiple postings around the web about goals and how to set resolutions for the New Year. I’m torn because I’ve written a book about finding out what you really want, so I feel I ought to say something but on the other hand what I want to tell you about goals runs counter to most other advice. So here I am, posting something.
Want to know what to do with the ‘New Year’ and your resolutions? In a word, don’t bother (OK, two words).
Why?
The driven and motivated are yelling about the goals they have set themselves, some bravely listing all the things they want to achieve. Frankly, some of this is intimidating, particularly if your track record lies in setting a big goal every January and then quietly forgetting it a couple of weeks later. You could be forgiven for thinking there is something wrong with you or you don’t have the ‘goal-setting’ gene that all these others seem to have.
You’d be wrong though. What’s striking about New Year’s resolutions is not how many other people are doing it but how few are doing it. For most the year will tick over as it has done for, well, years. Very few of those who bravely list their goals now will follow through and achieve something different to last year.
So having been cynical about goal setting efforts what’s my big suggestion? If you really must, and you want your resolutions to work, here are a few thoughts:
Any goal, thought or intention which begins “I’ll be happier when I’m (slimmer/fitter/richer/nicer/got an iPhone)” is doomed. Happiness is not a result of what you have and do, it’s a result of how you are. If your goals are about being happier then short-circuit all that work and be happy now. It’s not connected to your results.
That’s not to say there aren’t things that you’d like to change. Of course there are. It’s just that you’ll find it easier to create new things if you start from being happy rather than doing them to ‘get’ happiness.
Instead of “I’ll be happy when I’m…” think about “I’d really like to make or create…”
Set about making or creating something for the heck of it, for the sheer joy of doing it. Make a list if you must.
A goal like “I want to be 20lbs lighter by my birthday” is mostly useless as you might have found last year. Why? Because results like health and fitness don’t come from setting these kind of goals, they come from new habits. A better goal would be “I aim to take a 20 min walk most days and a longer walk at the weekend” or “I’m going to drink a glass of water before every meal”.
Make habit goals rather than target goals because what gets you the result is new behaviour not wishing at a target. What could you do if you started getting up 30 mins earlier?
New habits need to be positive and about adding something rather than giving up something.
It’s Winter. You should be in bed under a duvet somewhere, hopefully with someone warm. Goals are for Spring when new things start, there is more light and it is warmer. Align your goals to the seasons; new things in Spring, growth in Summer, reap in Autumn, consolidate and clean up in Winter.
It makes more sense to follow the natural rhythms rather than try to summon energy in the dark and cold. It’s the rhythm of people who work with the land – plant, grow, reap, lie fallow. I also think a goal set for any longer than three months is mostly a fantasy. 90 days is a good period to start and finish something.
Use this Winter time to think, ponder and plough deep. Save your energy for Spring.
If you must do something for New Year then you’ll need three pages and something to make a mark with.
1. Make a bug list
First, look around. Within six feet is something that you have left undone or needs clearing up or moving. Something that is not in its final home. Make a list of all these little undone jobs that are bugging you.
Then find the easiest one and do it. When you do, you’ll notice a tiny release of energy.
Each one of these unresolved or unfinished items represents a broken promise and a distraction. By clearing them up you achieve two things:
Make sure you fully resolve one of these a week. That’s 52 items in your life fully resolved, moved and finished in 2012.
2. What do I want?
Start writing. What do I want in 2012? World peace? My kids to tidy their bedrooms? A new job? Start writing and keep going until you run out of ideas. Then pick the smallest one and find one simple step that would move it nearer. Then go and do it. Keep finding small steps that are ridiculously easy to do and then do them.
3. What don’t I want?
Start writing. What don’t I want in 2012? No more commuting? Car to breakdown? Britain to leave the Euro? Start writing and keep going until you run out of ideas. Then pick one and ask yourself “What do I want instead?” Add it to list 2 and so on.
You’ll notice that some of these are outside of your control (or so you think). You can cross those off for now if you like.
So where are we? You’ve got three rough lists to work with:
Or you could shelve the whole lot and come back to this in March when the daffodils tell you it’s time to set some goals.
PS – Winter is a great time to do the exercises in the book so you are ready for Spring.
