Start Today: Why Starting Your Goal Next Week Kills Your Odds of Success
While preparing to make a change to your life - exercising more, eating better, stressing less - you decide to pick a specific day to get started. You say:
“I’ll get started next week.”
Here’s the problem with that:
It lowers your odds of success.
Let me explain:
If you decide to start on a Monday, what happens if you miss that Monday?
You decide to start next Monday. And, what if you miss that one too?
You might throw in the towel.
Starting on a Monday means you have a 1 in 7 chance of success, or 14%. You’ll have to make sure that everything else lines up on that Monday to get going.
Imagine you said you’ll start on the 1st of the month. You’re down to a 1 in 30 chance. That’s 3%.
What if you start next year, on January 1?
That’s less than half a percent at 0.27%.
You deserve better odds than that.
Let me offer an alternative:
Start today.
Starting today gives you your highest chance of success.
Starting later reduces your odds of following through. Starting today increases them. It’s in your best interest to let go of the idea that a new day, new week, and so on is the “right” time to start - it isn’t.
I know you might feel resistant to starting today, and that’s alright. If you’re willing to hear me out and dig a little deeper, I’ll help you through it.
Take a look at your goal. Let’s say you chose to exercise more.
What are some reasons you may not be able to do it today?
You don’t have workout clothes
You don’t have a gym membership
You’re not feeling motivated
You don’t have a workout partner
You don’t have time
These reasons are valid. They may genuinely be a complete block to exercising, but I encourage you to see your goal a little differently.
Most folks look at progress and reaching goals as all-or-nothing.“I didn’t go to the gym today, so I wasn’t able to exercise.”
Let’s get into the reasons why you want to exercise. Maybe you want to:
Be stronger as you age
Be able to keep up physically with your family
Have a different body composition
Feel less out of breath
The gym and traditional workouts aren’t the only way to reach those goals. You can progress towards this by:
Parking further away at the grocery store
Taking the stairs
Taking a 10-minute walk down the road
Dancing in your living room
Walking during a phone call
These little baby steps matter. Your gym workout would be 30 minutes to an hour, most likely. You have 24 hours today. No doubt, you’ll need most of those for other things.
Progress toward a goal is rarely big, sweeping victories. It’s small amounts of growth with a focus on consistency over perfection.
But I’m willing to bet you have five minutes for the stairs or that parking lot walk.
So, take a look at your goal through this shifted lens and plug it into this formula:
What is the why behind my goal?
What can I do today to move closer toward it?
For a little extra practice, let’s say you have a goal to eat less takeout. Your why is that you want to spend less money and eat healthier. You set a goal to get takeout less than three times a week. But, it’s Thursday and you’ve already gotten takeout four times this week.
You might say the week is a wash, so you might as well get takeout again tonight and try again next week.
Ask yourself: is this going to move you closer to your goal of eating less?
Nope.*
Increasing your takeout number this week from four to five isn’t going to move you closer to your why of spending less money and eating better.
You could wait until next week and try again, or you could commit to making dinner at home tonight. Or, if you absolutely must get takeout, try to choose an option that’s more in line with the why behind your goal: choose something healthier or less expensive.
*As an aside, it’s okay to take steps away from your goal. This does not make you a failure! I’ve never met someone who successfully reached their goal without some bumps along the way. Consistency and not giving up are far more important than perfection.
Starting today isn’t the only thing you can do to help yourself succeed. I’ve written other posts about that, but here are some quick tips:
Write down your goals
Those who write down their goals are more likely to succeed. Take some time to write down your goal and your why. Keep it somewhere visible, especially in a place where you’re more likely to find reasons to not follow through.
It’ll take you about five minutes to write down your goal, but it has the chance to nearly double your odds of success.
Set reminders
Especially if your goal is time-based (for example, needing to go to the gym after work), create a reminder. There are multiple ways you can remind yourself about your goal.
You can keep it traditional:
Set a Google Calendar reminder to go for a walk at noon
Use your phone alarm to remind you to drink water every hour
Write a note in your planner so you remember to do some breathing exercises in the morning
Or, you can get creative:
Put a sticky note on the fridge to remind you to take your water bottle to work
Keep your car keys in your gym shoes so you remember to pack your workout clothes
Place your vitamins in your coffee mug, since you’ll never forget your morning coffee
Okay, how about now:
Can you start today?
