6 Steps to Success and Achieving Your Goals with DESIRE

Hey there, everybody, and welcome to this video on six steps to success. Achieve your goals with desire. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. Achieving goals requires more than just a plan. We can make wonderful plans, but unless we have motivation and support, we're likely not going to actually achieve those goals. Desire is a method that uses cognitive behavioral therapy and motivational interviewing techniques to outline six steps to success. D in desire stands for describe the goal. Until you know exactly where you're going, what your destination is, what the product looks like, you're not going to know how to get there. So describe what it is you want to achieve. Be specific about it. What is it that you want to do? Not I want to get in shape. Well, that's kind of blah. I want to be able to run a a 5k in under 30 minutes. That is very specific. How will it move you toward your rich and meaningful life? And you want to describe this? Why is this important to me? How is this going to help me achieve something on my bucket list? Or how is it going to help me nurture something on in my rich and meaningful life that's important to me? Measurable? How are you going to know when you're done? And it's really important if you're going to set a goal of maybe improving your relationship with your kids. Okay, that's again, how do you know when you've improved the relationship? You may find that six out of every seven times you enjoy spending time together, or you reduce conflict from every time you meet and to once out of every four times you meet. But ultimately, how are you going to know that the relationship is improved? You want to make sure that it's achievable. Is this something you can realistically do, for example, improving your relationship with your kids? There are a lot of things that you can do, but if your kids are not willing to do their part, if they're going to hold grudges or if they're going to try to sabotage the relationship, there's not much you can do to change them. All you can do is change yourself. So what is it that you can realistically do relevant? Will whatever this goal is help you achieve the desired outcome? And I usually use the goal of losing weight or gaining weight. Sometimes people think that their relationship is in trouble because they're not attracted to their partner anymore. And if they just lost the 10 pounds or gained 10 pounds or, you know, did something different with their appearance, their relationship problems would magically disappear. And in reality, 99.9% of the time, that ain't it. There is something much more nefarious, if you will, or problematic than outward appearance that is causing the problems in the relationship and time limited daily, weekly, monthly and annual goals. As humans, we need regular feedback. We need regular reinforcement. So it's important to identify what is something I can achieve or accomplish today towards my goal and what is what is something that I can accomplish within a week. Having those frequent rewards and having those small baby steps keeps you moving forward. Change is freaking hard and it takes a lot of energy. So think about walking into a hundred mile an hour wind. You know, we've all seen Jim Cantore out there holding on for dear life in the middle of a hurricane. That's you, okay? That's you walking into change. You've got a lot of resistance coming toward you. Therefore, taking a baby step, trudging forward just a little bit is progress. And every baby step adds up. And before you know it, you've made huge strides. Think about it. If you take a baby step every day for two months, you are 60 steps further toward your goal by the end of those two months, or you know, if you want to think about it this way, maybe 20 or 30 big steps toward your goal at the end of two months. E stands for explore motivation. If you are not motivated and sufficiently motivated, then you're going to have difficulty achieving your goals. You can define them, but the motivation to actually get off the couch and do them or keep doing them when it starts to get uncomfortable, that can be a little bit elusive. Remember, motivation comes in five different areas. Your physical motivation. How is it going to help you feel better physically? Your affective motivation. How is it going to make you happier? Your cognitive motivation. How might it help your attitude? How might it help you have a clearer head or problem solve better? Environmental motivation, including time for activities of daily living, hobbies and financ. You know, in what way is this going to impact your environment? Is it going to help you free up time? Is it going to help you practice a hobby that maybe you've wanted to devote time to but you haven't had time? Or maybe it'll take time away from your hobbies? Likewise, is it going to contribute to your finances? Or is it going to be a drain on your finances? Just because it may be a drain on your finances or take away time from a hobby doesn't mean it's not worth doing. You need to figure out ways to stay motivated despite the fact that there are going to be some unpleasant aspects of this change. And relationally how is this going to impact the time and energy you have for important people? If you decide to run a marathon, for example, running a marathon, training for that takes a lot of time and it also takes a lot of energy. So you may not have as much energy to do other stuff with other people like you used to. That doesn't mean that you can't train to run a marathon if that's something that's there on your bucket list and you feel passionate about. Okay, you just have to figure out how are you going to make it work? Work with the other things that are important. Maybe you can start spending time with some of those people, working out together so you are training and still spending time with them. Maybe you can do more lowkey activities when you're spending time together since your energy is going to be lower, but you still want to spend time with them. So it's important to figure out how are you going to work this in and still have energy and time to devote to the things that are important in your rich and meaningful life. In motivational interviewing we talk about something called a decisional balance exercise. And it's important to identify the benefits of working toward this goal, but also the drawbacks. And for those drawbacks, how can you minimize the distress of those drawbacks? You also want to look at the benefits of staying the same because there's going to be a part of you that goes, yeah, you know, I haven't done it until now, I'm fine. Do I really need to do it? So you need to address that. What are the benefits to staying the same? And how can you make it a little more unpleasant to stay the same if you truly want to get motivated? And then what are the drawbacks to staying the same? Why is it again that you want to work toward that goal? S stands for seek support and knowledge. Change causes crisis and crisis causes change. Who can encourage you and how can they encourage you during this time? Think about small changes that you've made. Maybe you've decided to start going to the gym. All right, well, that sounds great on paper, but then you start to change. You start getting up at 5am so you can go to the gym before work and it feels uncomfortable. That's the crisis. So change causes crisis and you have to decide, is it is this change important enough to me to endure this discomfort or am I going to go backwards? And then crisis causes change. Sometimes we don't change until we kind of have some something or someone prodding us along. Maybe you are decide to get get in shape when your doctor says, you know what, you are going to have to have a quadruple bypass if you don't do something about your health. Okay, well that may be enough to motivate you to change. What activities of daily living can you delegate to free up time whenever you're making a change? Think about it like a job. It's not just something that magically happens. You make up your mind that you're going to do it and all of a sudden, poof, it happens. Or something that you can just throw onto the pile of tasks that you got to do. You've got to figure out when you're going to have time and energy to make it happen because it's hard at first. Learning a new skill or learning a new habit takes a lot more energy than you would think. So you need to figure out, how can I simplify my life so I have time and energy to focus on really solidifying this new change? Can you pre make meals? Can you have somebody else make meals in your household for a while? Can you have somebody else do the grocery shopping or maybe order, you know, do click and pull where you just show up at the grocery store and they've already done all the shopping for you and you just pick up your groceries. What can you do and who can mentor you? Seeking support is really important. A lot of times when we're making a change, we're doing something that we're not perfect at, we're not experts at. So seek someone who can mentor you. Somebody who has run a marathon before. Someone who has knowledge about improving relationships, someone who has knowledge about improving health, whatever it is you're trying to do or to change. Where can you find an expert? Where can you find someone to mentor you? Or at the very least, where can you find some credible self help resources? Help us continue to make practical tools available to everyone by supporting the channel. Donate any amount. Any amount helps@docsnipes.com donate or at cash appdocsnipes. Become a member of the YouTube channel and get perks. Go to docsnipes.com join. You can purchase a super thanks on any videos that you find particularly helpful. Or if you are a clinician and you need continuing education, you can earn CEUs based on these videos@allce.com. I in Desire stands for Identify the steps. Break the goal down into baby steps with target dates. Remember I talked about baby steps earlier? Baby steps are important. Create a master plan and think. What is the first thing you need to do to accomplish this? And I'M going to give you a hint. Most people make too big of a first step. So what is the first thing you need to do? When can you realistically get it done by. Is there something you need to do before that, which can be finished sooner? So is there something that you need to do to move toward your goal that you can do today that you can do right now? So, for example, getting into college sounds great for a lot of people, but there's a lot to do. First thing you've got to do is research colleges. Well, that's something you could do today. And then you need to decide on a college that usually takes another day or two. And then you need to figure out the deadlines for application, and then you need to do the applications. You see, there are. There's a lot of stuff. It's not just apply to college and, and start. For a lot of people, there's a research process that goes into it. Buying a house is the same way I want to buy a house. Well, great. Where do you want to live? What neighborhood? How big of a house can you afford? What things do you need in your house? You know, some people are fine with one bathroom. Some people need more than one bathroom. Some people need a fenced yard. Other people would rather die than have to do y work. So what is it that you need? You can define that on one or two days, consistently asking yourself, what is something I can do today to move me toward my goal? You can apply the desire framework to each of these steps as needed. And it's important to recognize that you've got to have motivation for every single thing you do. Not just the big goal, but all the stuff in between, because some of it's going to be not fun, like getting into college. I always hated doing those applications and the essays and the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Hated that part, you know? So I had to really work on enhancing my motivation to get through that particular step. One of the things I did when I was applying to graduate schools was I would only apply to one school a day instead of trying to apply to all of the ones that I wanted to apply to, because there's like four that I applied to. I did one a day, and I knew that I could focus on that for long enough to get it done. And it was unpleasant, but I could get through one. One application. R stands for remove obstacles. Think about when you've tried to achieve this goal or similar goals in the past and what has stopped you. Was it time? All right, we've already talked about that a little bit, but go revisiting that, eliminate things that are unnecessary right now, delegate as much as possible, prioritize what's left, and then compromise. So we live on a farm, for example, and there are some things that just have to be done every day. You know, you got to feed the animals, you got to check on them, you've got to put them up so that can't be eliminated. But some of it was able to be delegated to my kids, to my husband, and then prioritizing what was left. You know, things like mowing the lawn. Does it have to be mowed every single Saturday or can we skip this Saturday? Can I compromise and say, all right, you know, I'm, I'm not going to do this, I'm not going to do this, this set. I guess that would be eliminate, but, but then also compromise. When you mow the lawn, are you going to mow the lawn and weed, eat and do the hedges and all that stuff, or are you going to do the bare necessities so when the neighbors drive by, they don't go, dang, somebody ain't been doing their yard work lately? You know, there, there's a compromise in there where you're doing the minimum acceptable, if you will, for some of the things that just have to be done. Has knowledge stopped you in the past? If so, think about what is it that you need to know and where can you get that information that goes back to mentors, self help resources and reputable resources. Organization. Some people have difficulty achieving their goals because they just can't get organized. It's like, I want to do this, but I don't know where to start. And once I get started, I get distracted, I get halfway through and I never finish it. Okay, well that's where organization, planning and goal setting all kind of come in. Figuring out, what is it that I need? Let me get those things together. Planning. This is when I'm going to do these things. And you can put things down on a daily planner. This is what I need to do today, tomorrow, the next day, or this week. Writing it down so you have a visual representation, a visual timeline for what you need to get done. With planning and goal setting, you're thinking ahead about what needs to be done in the context of your life. You know, it's really easy to think, okay, I'll do this every single day. But then when you step back and you look at the context of your life and you're like, oh, wait, you know, that week I was supposed to go to my in laws house for the week and there's a, there's a holiday right there and oops, I forgot about this. So planning and goal setting at the front end is really, really important as well as organization, you know, keeping those reminders coming of things that you need to do in order to continue to move toward your goal and making sure you have those resources. Has finances stopped you from achieving your goals before? I know it does for a lot of people. So the question is, are there ways to make this happen? Maybe whatever you want to do means you need to cut back on how many hours of overtime you're working. Okay, well if you want to go to school, for example, to get a higher degree, sure sounds great. But finances can be a problem if you need to cut back on your work hours or if you're just barely making ends meet now. So, exploring with a financial advisor, what are some options? Exploring if you want to go to school, for example, exploring with the school, what are financial aid options like in Tennessee, if you don't have a degree and you're 25 or older and a resident of Tennessee, you can go to a two year college for free. So there's a lot of programs out there. You just have to figure out what they are and where they are. If the goal that you're working toward has something to do with career, go to your career one stop or your workforce development board because they'll have a lot of information about ways to financially make it possible to achieve your goal. If other, if you have other goals, like starting a family, you know, finances are big when you're starting a family too. So consult people. Consult people who've been through it. You know, if they've already raised a family, how did they afford it? And see if you can find out information about public programs that are available to support you and whatever your goal is. And finally, fear. Fear is often a huge obstacle. Even though we can't see it, we can't touch it, it's there and it blocks us. Many of us fear failure. We are afraid that if we can't do it, that people are going to look down on us. Or if we can't do it perfectly, that we might, might as well not do it at all. And it's important to remember that, that or to consider, I should say that failure means that you got outside your comfort zone and you tried something new and you learned about yourself and you learned at least one way not to do it in the future. Failure is part of the learning process. Recognizing that is really important. It's also important to recognize when you're setting these goals. You know, you don't typically want to put all your eggs in one basket where you're trying this thing. You're going out on a limb and you're putting all of your savings and everything, every penny you have in the world into this. And if you fail, you're going to be destitute. You know, that's a lot of pressure. You know, is there a compromise in there where you could. That would be a safer stepwise progression towards your goal? And rejection. Sometimes we fear working towards our goals because we're afraid that people are going to think they're stupid or that they will reject us. So we need to identify people who could support us and who would support us even if they don't agree with our goals. I remember when I went out for cheerleading when I was in high school. My mother was adamantly opposed to cheerleading as well as adamantly opposed to sorority life. So I was a little apprehensive at approaching those things. But they had always interested me. So I had to find other people who were willing to be supportive in case she didn't come around. She did come around, but I had to be prepared in order to face my fears and finally envision your success. Envision yourself achieving that goal. Each night before bed, close your eyes and kind of drift off seeing yourself achieving that overall goal. And in the morning before you get up, envision yourself successfully completing your goal for that day. So see yourself completing the whole goal at night. And in the morning, see yourself taking that baby step. Envision yourself doing it. So when you get up out of bed, that's already on your mind. That's already pre programmed Desire uses a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy and motivational interviewing to help you achieve your goals. You can use desire to define your long term goals, like getting a degree, as well as short term goals that will help you achieve that long term goal.