In last week’s newsletter, we learned Rachel wants to lose ten pounds. But her real goal is to improve her self-esteem and feel loved and connected to someone.
Now she needs data-driven action steps. These are measurable action steps based on expert guidelines. She needs to track her progress completing those action steps. And she needs to believe she has at least a 70% chance of completing them. Notice this is contrary to popular advice to create very tiny habits that are easy to achieve.
Bigger action steps mean you will see results sooner and those results will further motivate you to stick to your action steps. A tiny action step, such as eating one apple per day, isn’t going to give you a noticeable result. That’s why tiny habits usually backfire in this context. It is often better to go bigger with your action steps, so you see real progress real fast. But don’t go too big. Be sure you are at least 70% confident you can stick to your action steps.
Let’s create an action step that will lead Rachel to her goal. Should she eat a certain number of carbs per day or limit the amount of seed oils in her diet? You may think those are good action steps, but they are not what the experts recommend. The World Cancer Research Fund found only two diet changes with strong evidence they help you achieve and maintain a healthy weight:
1. Eating high fiber foods, like fruit, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains, and
2. Eating a Mediterranean diet.
Rachel decides her action steps will be to eat two pieces of fruit and a cup of vegetables per day. She has experimented with eating more fruits and vegetables in the past and feels very confident she can achieve this if she tracks her progress with a habit tracker. Rachel now has Data-Driven action steps.
Try this:
Pick one food you want to eat more of. Write down the daily amount you feel you have at least a 70% chance of achieving over the next seven days. Then write it as a habit in the Habit column of the IDEAL Goals™ Habit Tracker.
Next week Rachel moves the cookies.
