The action of living is about our health; how we live. And our health is critical to the success of our other life goals. Living healthy means being fit for work and play. Taking care of yourself is fundamental to loving and caring for others. So the second personal goal I will share with you is my need to lose weight.

Goal: I will lose 13 pounds by April 1st, that is one pound a week.

Now, the truth is, I need to lose much more than this to be at a healthy weight. But as I talked about in the last post, “Setting Personal Goals the Smart Way“, it is best to make goals obtainable in the not so distant future. So, I will be working on this life goal all year, but my first target goal is to lose the 13 pounds. Then I can celebrate, and not with food. Actually, it is important for me not to use food as a reward for achieving any of my goals.

My action steps for losing the weight focus on two things: increasing physical activity and decreasing calorie intake. For activity I will be doing a few things. First, I will take more walks with my wife and the dogs and begin running again. I have done a lot of running in the past and even completed a half-marathon. However, I tend to stick with it for only 4-6 months and then lose interest. So this time I am not going to think of it as training, but instead, running will be more for recreation. I will also spend more time at a couple activities I really enjoy, backpacking and disc golf. I prefer to be active doing these things rather than doing more formal exercising.

Cutting calories will be fairly easy for me during the first few months. I have been eating a very unhealthy diet as of late, and I simply need to cut out the junk food. That means cutting back on the high carb snacks and soft drinks. I will also focus eating smaller meals at least three or four times a day.

So, that is the brief description of the action steps I have laid out for this life goal. What suggestions do you have for how I can stay focused and lose the weight?

Denis Watley, the author of The Psychology of Winning said,

The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don’t define them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them.

Defining our goals means putting plan on paper. We need to write our our goals in order to make them real. Putting your goals on paper is making a contract with yourself.

If we want to get somewhere, we need to know what route we will be taking. We also want to know when we’ve arrived. So writing out our goals is our map for arriving at a destination. To do this, I recommend the SMART method, a strategy recommended by numerous life coaches and change experts.

SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely. You will use these criteria to judge each the goals you set for yourself. If a goal does not meet each of these five criteria, it is rewritten or dropped.

Specific: A specific goal is one that clearly states what it is that you want to achieve. It is not “being healthy” or “making more money”. A specific goal addresses the who, what, when, where and why of your goal. Being healthy is now “I will lose 15 pounds by July 1st so I can be more active and enjoy activities with my children.” Making more money is “I will take on a part time job while in school in order to earn an additional $500 each month.” Keep it simple, but clear and specific.

Measurable: This is the most important aspect of any goal. It is how we know when we’ve arrived at our destination. Measurable means that you set a date for achievement and usually use numbers to set the specific measure of that achievement. Sometimes relationship goals are hard to put in measurable terms, but actions are not. So, if you want to improve your relationship with your mother, first determine the specific actions that will help you improve that relationship. A simple step might be calling her each week or taking her to dinner to discuss your relationship. Each of these actions is measurable; did I call each week or did I take her to dinner and talk.

Achievable: Many people define achievable in the same why they define realistic. I like to think of achievable as our perception of the goal. Do we believe that we can accomplish the tasks necessary for success? If our goal is set too far in the future, we can become discourages or lose site of the goal. Achievable means breaking a challenging goal into smaller parts, each one more easily achievable than the whole. Like the answer to the riddle, how do you each an elephant? One bite at a time.

Realistic: Sure, we all want to make big changes overnight. If you want to lose 30 pounds, you can’t expect to do it in 6 weeks (regardless of what the ad says). We have to be realistic about what we can accomplish. Do you know someone who has accomplished the goal you are setting? How long did it take them? What resources did they need to reach their goal? Do you have the resources and time to do the same? Most importantly, are you willing and able to make it happen?

Time-based: Your goals need to have a date for completion. Writing your resume doesn’t mean much if you allow six months to finish it. When you set your goal, pick a date for completion. This is also the date for the celebration! When you complete a goal, you need to celebrate your success. If your date is more than a few months away, consider breaking your goal into smaller parts. The more successes you have along the way, the easier it is to reach your ultimate goal.

Now, grab that pen and paper and start writing. Where do you want to be in three months? How will you get there? Who will help you? And how will you celebrate when you finish?

As I mentioned in a previous post, I will be sharing with you each of my Seven Action goals. First, I will talk about my learning goal.

Goal: To complete a class on web development or programming to help me with my blogging.

It’s been a long time since I attended a class where my performance was graded. The past twenty years have been more about conferences, workshops and those other terms we give learning in a professional environment. But now it’s back to school.

I’ve registered for Adobe Dreamweaver 8: Web Design at the local community college. My son and I will be attending classes on the same campus (although I doubt he will ever claim to be related). This time around it’s not about the degree or diploma, it’s about knowledge. I need to learn more about the environment I am working in (my moonlighting job). So, I start classes in two weeks and, quite frankly, I can’t wait. I will be keeping you up to date on my experience during the next several months.

If you want to leave me a tip or recommendation for my return to campus, please leave a comment. I’m sure things have changed a bit in the last 20 years.

I am Jim Lockwood, a 44 year old man living in central California, USA with my wife, youngest son (the oldest recently moved out), two dogs and a cat. For the past 22 years I have worked with youth and families in Texas, Florida, and California. I started as a residential counselor at a children’s home and, after receiving my Masters of Science in Social Work, I started working as a supervisor and later an administrator. I am now the Executive Director of a state association of nonprofits that work with families.

During this time I’ve have developed a “philosophy of life”. We all do it eventually. We build opinions about what is important in life and why. We make moral decisions about what is right or wrong. We form beliefs for how to function in society. Beliefs about relationships. Beliefs about money, health and community. And it is from my beliefs about life that I developed the idea of the Seven Actions. Actions that I believe are critical to our success and happiness.

So, due to a number of changes in my recent life and a thoughtful self-examination, I have once again decided to set some targets for personal change. In doing so, I’ve selected one goal from each of the Seven Actions. Setting specific goals is something I have done a several times in my life, often with mixed results. I knew that tracking my goals and sharing my ambitions with others would increase my success.

That bring me to this blog. The Seven Actions blog is my way of sharing my goals with others (you) and it is a part of my tracking system. I will be documenting the progress on my goals on this blog. In fact, I will be sharing those goals in upcoming posts. Yep, you are a part of my plan for success!

But this blog is also about sharing ideas and learning together. You have goals for your life. Maybe you have New Year’s resolutions you are trying to keep. So, join me and be a part of the Seven Actions community. That is what Seven Actions is about…learning together how to change our lives.

So, you’ve made your New Year’s resolutions and this year you intend to keep them. You have a strategy and have already taken some action steps to achieving your goals. But how do you keep track of your progress? Are there tools you can use to document your efforts and monitor your goals? Sure there are, and Lawrence from A Long Long Road has some excellent recommendations. His recent blog titled 7 Cool Tools To Help You Manage Your Goals for 2008 has a tool to fit just about everyone. From a simple, but effective paper and pencil solution to the Franklin Covey ultimate software, Lawrence presents seven tools for tracking your New Year’s success.

For most of my life I have been a goal setter. I guess it’s related to my attraction to numbers, statistics, and basically measuring things. I started around age 14 selecting measurable targets for things I wanted to achieve in life. And doing so had a tremendous impact on who I have become.

But life is not over and the journey is still underway. I am at a point in my life where I need to revisit the goals that I have set, consider some new paths and set new targets for myself.

Over the years I have come to believe that our lives can be summed up in Seven Actions: love, play, live, seek, learn, invest, and work. Everything we do falls into one of these Seven Actions. By seeking to understand these actions, what they mean, and how we can use them to improve ourselves, we begin to take control of our lives. And when we are in control, we can choose our own path, create our own happiness and determine our own future.

So, I’ve set some new goals for my life. I’ve organized them by the Seven Actions. During the next year I will be talking about these goals, and the progress I am making. I will share with you what works and what doesn’t.

But this blog is not just about me. This blog is about change; and it’s about you. It is about using each of the Seven Actions to better our lives and become what we most want for ourselves. I hope you will visit often.

What you can expect:

• Regular posts and articles about using the Seven Actions to change your life.
• News and information about real ways to reach your goals.
• Tips, tools and resources that will improve your life at work, home and in the community.
• Encouragement from others who are changing their lives.

What you won’t get:

• A lot of fluffy words about change with no help with no real answers.
• Paid posts that promote a product or service without real experience that it works.
• Answers from a guru who knows everything and has life all figured out. (This is just one way of looking at life, and by no means the answer to everything.)