It's absolutely worth clicking on the photo above so that you can listen to this particular episode of The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos. On it, her guest Diana Hill talks about the guy who invented the "unstuck button" for robots. Before this invention, if a robot was trying to do something, it would, for example, push against a wall an infinite number of times or until it used up its power source to try to get through the wall. What the unstuck button does is signify to the robot that doing the same thing or doing the same thing with more force isn't the only option. It says, "Try everything you're not already trying to solve this problem."
Of course, people can be like robots pre-unstuck button. How many people make the same resolution every year on New Year's Eve? This year, I'm going to do the following:
- lose weight
- workout
- spend more time with my family
- eat healthier
- do more things that are good for me
- drink less alcohol; drink more water
- do my work earlier
You get the list. Maybe you've made the list. Maybe you've made the list thirty years in a row. You do this because you know that what you're doing now isn't serving you, but you think that the same solution, the one that hasn't worked for days or years or decades will somehow come through for you this year.
Time to get unstuck. It's time to ask yourself how you can reframe the goal to approach it from a different direction. Let's consider the "I want to workout more" goal. It's so vague, so let's home in:
- What activities count as working out?
- How many minutes does one have to engage to achieve a workout?
- Where can working out happen?
- Do I need an accountability partner to get myself to do this?
- How often should I do the activity?
- What equipment do I need to make this work?
- What steps do I need to take to get to this goal?
- If I don't do it/miss a day, how do I reengage?
- If something goes wrong with plan A, what plan can I put in place to keep/renew momentum?
There are probably more questions worth asking. And once we have specific, measurable, ideally binary plans (so you can ask, Did I achieve this, yes or no?) in place with back-ups and back-ups for the back-ups, then we can work toward the goal with a better chance of success. Nebulous goals without detailed logistics rarely work.
What do you think? What goals will you set, and how will you scaffold yourself for success? What unstuck button can you push to get from today to where you want to be in life? Please share any responses in the comments.