The hidden catch that stops you achieving your goals (and how to avoid it)

So January's here and that means for most of us, we're thinking about the year ahead. We're starting to think about what do we want to focus on, what do we want to learn, how do we want to grow in 2026. And for a lot of you, that means New Year's resolutions and obviously New Year's resolutions. If you're like most people, you've probably tried them before and you're probably aware that within two, three months they've fallen by the wayside. But what you might not know is there's actually one single common reason that almost all of them have for not working. And it's something that we as practitioners can fall prey to even when it's not January. So I want to talk about that today and share that with you so you can really make sure that you're not just thinking about what I want this year to be, but you're giving yourself the best chance of actually getting there and achieving whatever goals you have. So I learned this quite painfully myself many years ago. So when I first graduated, I've been in practice for about a year or two and I used to be. I'm not so much now. I used to be a bit more hypermobile and to be honest, I was never a very active kid or teenager. I never did exercise or played sport. I wasn't an especially great role model as a practitioner. And what that meant was that after about 18 months was in practice and I was starting to feel it. I mean, combination of that plus not great technique, couple of things as well, doing too much soft tissue with my thumbs, but I was really feeling it and my joints were getting really, really sore and the guilt of not practicing what I preach was starting to bite that sort of hidden hypocrisy. So it got to January and I went, okay, right, I need to make a change. I know I'm going to join a gym. I think I'm just at a point in my life where I have to accept I need to go to a gym, I need to exercise. And the practice I was working at the time, there was a couple of gyms nearby, but there was only one that was within walking distance that I could get to during my lunch break, which happened to be a very expensive David Lloyd gym where the basic membership and bearing in mind this is 2013ish. It started at 90 pound a month and then went up from there, which is more than 23. 24 year old Chris wanted to pay, but it was convenient. And I also thought not knowing about the sunk cost fallacy back then, oh, well, if I'm spending £90amonth, that'll make me want to do it even more. I want to get good use for my good bang for my buck there. So I go and I join the gym, I go down, have the induction, they show me all the machines, da da d. And I've now got my membership. And over the course of 2013, sorry, I spent over £1,000 on my membership because I kept it the entire year. And I went about seven or eight times, which, when you work it out, is an embarrassing amount of money per workout. You know, 100, 120 pounds. More than twice what I would have paid for a personal trainer. Ironically, at that time, they offered personal training and I went, that's a bit extravagant. I don't need to spend that kind of money. So I went and spent way more. When you actually average it out instead of. And fast forward a few years and my technique had improved and I was taking a bit more care of myself, but I still wasn't really going to a gym. And my daughter's born now and she wants picking up and carrying and throwing in the air and all this stuff. And I was getting puffed out. So I went, right, okay, I need to do it. And I've learned my lesson from last time. I need accountability. Because I thought that the reason I failed back then was that I had no accountability. I had nobody to keep me on track there. So I go down, I find a gym nearer me that fortunately was not that much money compared to it, but they have a lot of personal training there. And I go there and I sign up and I hire a personal trainer I see once a week. And I go, look, Sam, I'm sure you know your stuff because they're very good there. But I'm mainly here just for somebody to give me grief if I don't show up and to make sure I do come and work out regularly. I'm sure I'll learn something, but that's really why we're here. Yep, that's fine. A lot of people do that. No worries. And so he sets me up on a program and I'm going twice a week on my own, plus once a week with him. And after, you know, we found some goals that, what do you want to work on? What do you want to focus on? And after about eight or 10 weeks, he checks in with me. He's like, you know, it's been a couple of months, just over. How are you feeling? How are you finding this. And I said to him, like, Sam, I don't know how you've done this because I was never this kind of person. But I wake up in the morning on a day where I go to the gym and I go, I'm going to the gym and I have a smile on my face and I go to bed the night before, looking forward to coming here. And I don't know how you've done this because I've never enjoyed the gym. It's never been my thing, but now I actually look forward to it. And ever since then, barring some hiccups around Covid and life getting a bit busy, but I've been somebody who regularly goes to the gym ever since. And I can tell you I haven't worked with a personal trainer for years. So it's not the accountability. I thought it was that bored. It wasn't the actual problem. The mistake I made the first time, which so many of us do when we're trying to work on our goals, is we focus on the outcome. We make it all about the thing we want to get. So when I signed up to that expensive gym, I thought, I want to get in shape and fitter and I don't want to hurt when I'm adjusting patients. I don't want to feel like a hypocrite. Those are kind of my outcomes. The problem was all I thought about was that and I didn't have very clear outcomes. And clear outcomes certainly help smart goals, that kind of thing. It's not a bad idea. But I also hadn't really thought about the process, like what is it going to be like getting from here to there. Whereas what Sam did in working with that trainer years later taught me is that he actually made the process enjoyable. Yes, I hit my goals. I was able to deadlift my own body weight and do a Turkish get up and this kind of stuff now. But I haven't had a goal to do with exercise for years and years. But I've stuck with it because Sam found a way to make it fun. For me. It was about the process of getting fitter. Actually going and being at the gym started to be something that I enjoyed. Was no longer about the outcome, now focusing on the outcome. I'm not saying you should never do that. That can certainly be useful for getting you inspired. It can certainly be useful for making you take action. Very few people go, this year I want to start enjoying exercise. But the problem with just focusing on the outcome is that it works really well for short term goals, for long term Goals. It doesn't because after days and then weeks and then months of not having the outcome, you don't necessarily feel any better. You don't really get that hit of dopamine for going, I've achieved this thing. Whereas when I started enjoying going to the gym and it became about the process, every time I go I got a hit of dopamine. In fact, every time I thought about getting to go, I'd get hit of dopamine. So my brain got addicted to the idea of going to the gym. That became the thing that became fun. It wasn't the accountability, it wasn't somebody going do this or I'll give you some social pressure and a bit of grief for was that falling over the actual process of it. And that is something that I think a lot of us miss within chiropractic as well. And it's one of the things I'm so passionate about. It's why I love teaching what I teach and why I love what I do. Because one of the most frequent bits of feedback I get and the stuff that really lights me up every time I hear it is people telling me that they enjoy practice again, not that, oh, I saw 100 patients this week or my maintenance stats have gone up or whatever. This kind of thing is like, those goals are great and people often share those too. But the thing that really lights them up is, is falling in love with that process. So whatever your goals are for the next 12 months, I would really stress this. An outcome is not a bad thing. By all means have that. But try and find a way to actually enjoy the process. Try and get to the point where the process of actually getting towards that is the thing that you start to like. Because if you feel like you're constantly like having to whip yourself and make yourself do something you don't want to do, eventually the easiest way to do that is what I did and just avoid going to the gym, even though it cost me £120 of work out there. So that's something I have a little think about this year. If you want some help with that, I've got a few things coming up as well. So first of all, if you're a relatively recent graduate or you're somebody who struggles with confidence, I know that feeling like low in confidence, imposter syndrome, that kind of stuff, that's a huge drain on actually enjoying the process of being a chiropractor and being a practitioner there. So March 7th, I'm doing another one day workshop with a clinical confidence masterclass with my friend Jason in Chislehurst in southeast London. So love for you to join us there. That is going to really, really help you in terms of enjoying that process by just overcoming the self doubt, the limiting stuff. Half with me on communication skills, it's half with Jason on some really cool lower limit extremity stuff as well there then for those of you who are, that's not such an issue but you're into second phase of your career where you want to get more expertise. I'm running another joint event. This one is in Chex's notes May 9th and 10th. So May 9th and 10th this will be up in Sheffield at Goose Chiropractic. I haven't got a sign up page for this yet, but we'll get one shortly. We're doing the evolution of chiropractic again. Myself, Simon Billings, Aidan Robinson will be teaching you stuff. So I'm going to be going through the specific reporter findings framework I use that really gets patients inspired and to fall in love with the process themselves. Aidan is going to be teaching you some fantastic adjusting skills, palpation skills. Aidan came down and trained my team a couple of months ago and everybody has been enjoying practice even more since then. He really gets you farther. And Simon Billings of course is going to be teaching about nutrition. He's going to be teaching you ways that you can get even better results with your patients by looking at the neuromed mechanical interface. Sorry, Neuro metabolic interface, I always get that wrong. But some nutrition skills that are really going to help take your treatments to the next level. So that's if you're in that stage where you're looking for more advanced skills that is May 9th and 10th and then on June 20th I'm going to be running a one day patient experience masterclass with modern chiropractic mastery and Kevin Christie. This is just for clinic owners. If you want to really help grow the kind of practice that your patients love coming to see, they get more excited about, they stick around, they tell their friends and you develop that reputations. This is the clinic that makes you feel really, really good again. Help your patients fall in love with the process and fall in love with the process of having your own practice as well. So Kevin and I are going to be doing a one day one. He's coming over from the US just to do this with us. This will be in London June 20. There are some big fish that Kevin works with and the guys he trains as well, guys I look up to and would love to learn from, are going to be coming to this as well. So you're going to meet a whole host of really high level, really, really fantastic practitioners and clinic owners as well. So that's up there. But whatever you choose to do, whether you want to look at one of these events or whether you're going to focus on something different, just take this, try to find a way to fall in love with the process, look at it and go how can I make myself enjoy walking along this path and not just focusing on the destination? That way you've got the best chance of not only hitting your goals in 2026 but actually feeling like it was a fun year along the way. So have a think about that as always. Any questions let me know. I will post the links for these events as they come out. The clinical confidence is out now the other two we will have sign up pages coming very, very soon and I'll see you then.