I know you shouldn't do that, but I can't help it. Sometimes I subconsciously set dates/months when I want to hit a mini goal. For example, I want to be 180 by late July this summer. That's about 40 pounds..Does anyone else set dates?
I do. I want to be 160 by my birthday (June 25) and I will be!!! I think its okay to have goals like this...just don't make it to hard and impossible to reach..i think i will reach my goal a bit before my bday in all honesty but you never know and i dony want to let myself down so im givong myself plently of enough time
I think it depends on your mindset and progress. I have the unfortunate habit of setting my goals too high, and then get upset when I don't attain them. So for now on the wii fit, my goal is 5 pounds in a month! I should be able to do that... heck, it's 60 pounds a year.
I always set goal dates, I can't help myself, but really, it's more just to help keep my focus. If I'm not at my goal by the date I set, I'm okay with it. I'm just a person that needs deadlines.
I do. 5 pounds a month; trying to be conservative since I'm older now. Want to meet certain goals by vacation time, graduation, etc. I'm okay if I don't make it as long as I'm on the right track. Excited this month to already be ahead.
Nope. I learned the hard way not to do it, a year ago when I was five pounds short of my goal and felt like I had failed in some way, even though I KNEW I wanted to avoid that pitfall and that I'd lost the other twenty without issue. I wasn't exactly where I wanted to be and you'd better believe it was a drag on me subconsciously.
So now, not really. I set presents for myself when I hit milestones, like getting a wallet I want when I hit 170 or trying for another baby when I get in the 150's, but NO time related goals. I can't control the rate of my loss, I CAN control the behaviors that make me lose. It seems awfully silly in hindsight to set a goal based on a variable I can't control!
Last edited by Arctic Mama; 03-26-2012 at 10:36 PM.
I find myself doing this. Not always, but sort of week to week, like I want to lose 2.5 lbs this week. It makes me get off my butt and exercise when I'm tired.
I do have my weight loss blocked off in 50 lb sections in my mind, but there are no deadlines. Just rewarding myself when I reach one.
I do have a big vacation coming up at the beginning of May and I find myself setting a goal. I can't help it! It's 5 weeks away and I want to lose 12 lbs by then which is a bit of a stretch. But that weight loss will bring my weight into the 200s for the first time in a decade and I just can't stop myself from fixating on this goal...ha
I think the key is I'm super ecstatic if I meet it, but I don't beat myself up if I don't. As long as I weigh less than I did a month ago, I'm cool.
I find goal dates frustrating. I have general goals but they're just more of a "when I get there, I'll get there" type thing. Specific dates or events just lead to frustration on my part and I therefore avoid them. They work for some people but definitely not me.
I have goal dates and I keep a spreadsheet of them with my Sunday weight-in's.
I adjust them and move them forward when I don't make them...but it does seem like when the "goal" date is closer...I bust my butt even harder the week or two before...like my year anniversary of healthy living is April 1st so I am work ing extra hard this week!! Just me tho...to each their own
With one small exception (explained at the end of the post) I have learned not to. Goal dates bite me in the butt and set me up for failure every time.
I'm always WAY too hard on myself, and if I fall short, even by a fraction of a pound, I obsess over the failure and don't appreciate the success.
Another way they backfire is that if I see that I'm "falling behind" especially as the goal date approaches, I find myself more likely to use foolish and even dangerous methods to try to "catch up."
They're tempting, even now - but I have to avoid this temptation even more than I have to avoid food temptation. Giving in to a food temptation is actually less damaging to me psychologically than giving in to the goal date temptation, because I can forgive myself and move on faster from food regret than from goal-by date setting.
Goal date temptation is sort of like a "gambling addiction," for me. It's a slippery sloap, if I give in I always end up in a self-damaging mental and physically self-destructive cycle.
That being said, I can't be entirely open-ended with my goals or I procrastinate. So my compromise is rewarding every 5 lb loss by adding a "donut bead" to a bracelet (like the Pandora beads, but WAY cheaper at JoAnn Fabric and Michael's).
I also am a TOPS member (taking off pounds sensibly, like WW the groups have weekly meetings and weigh-ins, but unlike WW members can follow any food plan they wish), and the weekly weigh-in keeps me focused on weight loss, but I don't set specific goals.
The great things about TOPS groups is that every week everyone shares how they did - (in some groups whether they lost, gained, or stayed the same. Our group also shares how much, though no one shares their exact weight unless they wish to). Knowing that I'm going to be telling the group exactly what I managed to lose or gain, helps keep me focused.
Another great thing about TOPS is all the rewards, incentives, and contests (some people don't find contests motivating, but most of the contests are entirely optional, so you can always opt out). Winning "best loser" for the week or "staying on the apple tree" (we have a monthly constest where your name on an apple stays on the paper tree until you miss a meeting or have a gain) or winning any of the other contests works much better.
The exception:
I do break my anti-date in my TOPS group by participating in the monthly pledge contest. I'll admit that my reason is primarily simple peer-pressure. "Everyone in the group" participates so I do to, but I work hard at NOT making it a big deal.
In my TOPS group, every month the leader passes around a pledge sheet. Everyone contributes a quarter and pledges to lose a certain amount of weight that month. At the end of the month if you don't meet your pledge, you lose the quarter. If you meet or exceed your pledge, you split the money collected with everyone else who has also met their pledge (if everyone met their pledge you'd only get your own quarter back, but that never happens).
Most members seem to try to write down the biggest number they think they can acheive. I tend to do the reverse. I try to pick a number that I think I can do easily (and I still end up losing my pledge most of the time - but I don't let it be important to me, and have pledged to myself that if I start falling into the stupidity "catch up" mode I will opt out of the pledge contests).
i do as well but for a slightly different reason. I just like thinking that at the end of March, I'll be 10 pounds lighter and fantasizing about what I will look like when I get there
I guess it's also slightly different because I only weigh in every 6-8 weeks, so I definitely have progress to look forward to.
When I first started 6 months ago I did them every month and loved them. While I didn't always make my goal, I was close, and I was okay with that. I didn't beat myself up about it.
But then I hit the dreaded plateau, and am still there really. So now, I've signed up for a long-range challenge (July 4), and it's really to keep my motivation up. At this point and the way it's going, I really don't know what my progress is going to be by then... but it gives me motivation to imagine what I MIGHT be at if I ever break through this plateau!!!
Every time I have in the past it has derailed me... my problem was though I was setting unattainable goals and wishing on a star, then feeling horrible about myself when I either didn't make it or didn't really work towards it, hoping that simply thinking about losing would make the weight come off. LOL
Since starting this time it's different. Setting goals is really keeping me motivated. I have a healthy mindset about it, where I know I may not reach them, and I am okay with that. Setting them makes me work harder. For me, if I have a I'll lose it when I lose it attitude I may NEVER lose it. So they are working for me. If I become obsessive about it or start feeling that I will put myself off track when I don't make one then I will reevaluate.
I set a 10 pound goal for March, and just did my last weigh-in of the month, and lost 8. I am SOOO over the moon to be down 8 pounds that I am completely fine with not hitting the 10. But aiming for the 10 is why I lost the 8, if that makes sense.
I think it all depends on each person and how they perceive and deal with it in their head.
Setting goal dates?
plateau!!!
