Agile goals are especially useful when it comes to dealing with goals that involve changing old habits. Agile SMART goals work for everyone, but are especially well-suited to creative types, rebels, people who are addicted to insight, gifted people, ADHD and other neurodiverse characters.Bandura social cognitive learning the agile approach to goals is what I teach clients and coaching group participants.

S.M.A.R.T. Is a useful acronym – but, it is often NOT a good fit for the most challenging and difficult goals.Bandura social cognitive learning it’s a good start, but the conventional SMART model does not provide all the tools needed to master the art of using goals to change habits and enhance performance.Bandura social cognitive learning there are times when an updated agile approach is what’s needed to make our goals more effective and more *user-friendly.”

“agilizing” is a word I made up.Bandura social cognitive learning I took the word *agile” and made it a verb to make it easier to articulate the complex process of becoming agile – which involves getting unstuck and getting into action in a need responsive, organic way.Bandura social cognitive learning agile is about being flexible and adjusting to the situation at hand in a way that produces helpful results. Agilizing is the process of making something that is rigid, stuck, or not working, into something that is more flexible, customizable and adjustable.Bandura social cognitive learning

When someone is stuck in a yo-yo pattern — a goal is achieved, but the result doesn’t last. The goal just keeps coming back and all too often the current state is often even worse that before you set the goal the first time.Bandura social cognitive learning like when you lost 5 pounds but gained back 10 pounds. The same is true for many habit related goals such as exercising, organizing, and eating healthier – these are all goals that are highly susceptible to the yo-yo effect.Bandura social cognitive learning

Stating your goal as losing weight is part of the problem. The more we think about *losing weight* the harder it becomes to do it. This is because our attention is trying to focus on something our brains literally can’t make happen in the moment.Bandura social cognitive learning losing weight is not an action or behavior we can consciously do – it’s a complex and slow process that is invisible to the naked eye. It is a *byproduct* of lots of actions, habits, biological and emotional factors.Bandura social cognitive learning we are not meant to be so conscious of it.

When our attention is focused on something we can’t do anything about right now, it causes stress.Bandura social cognitive learning when we focus attention on very small, simple doable tasks and behaviors, we are far more likely to act on them. We can’t lose weight in 5 minutes, but we can support ourselves in making better decisions about what to eat for breakfast, or what to snack on.Bandura social cognitive learning why we need agile goals

Inadvertently, conventional goals often make people feel pressured to achieve the goal as stated. If you miss a milestone or deadline, you feel like you did something *bad.* using goals to *drive* behavior (instead of to facilitate meeting the intention behind the goal) has many negative side effects – unintended consequences that increase stress, overwhelm and impair our overall health.Bandura social cognitive learning

The agile approach to SMART goals invites you to respect and accept yourself as you are right now – even though you may not *like* it – and set interim short term goals that fit you now and can easily change as you grow.Bandura social cognitive learning wanting to change something in your life does NOT require that you fight yourself. It’s far more effective to respect yourself as you are even though you know you will grow.Bandura social cognitive learning

Goals and expectations play a significant role in shaping our performance. Often, the way we frame our goals triggers procrastination instead of action. Chronic procrastination is a form of feedback.Bandura social cognitive learning it’s your innermost self letting you know that your goal needs agilizing. By definition, if you are procrastinating, you don’t feel inspired to get started.Bandura social cognitive learning that means your goal is not yet agile or SMART enough. A goal has been agilized enough when you feel ready, willing and inspired to get into action and take steps toward the goal – no matter how tiny those steps may be, each one feels worth the trouble because you have so clearly and powerfully built an irresistible cost-benefit case that makes it feel almost impossible NOT to take a step.Bandura social cognitive learning agile approach to SMART goals

Agile goals are designed to connect small seemingly insignificant actions to meaningful, big picture emergent outcome goals such as “improve my health” or “make more money.” in this way, even the most trivial of daily actions and habits become easier to act on.Bandura social cognitive learning agile goals connect even the tiniest of actions, including taking some time to think, to highly valuable and significant outcomes. Agile goals are stated briefly and simple enough to remember.Bandura social cognitive learning you can visualize yourself doing each tiny step and you could even capture it with a video if you wanted to.

The agile zone is about establishing a full spectrum of expectations that range from a bare minimum, to good enough, to a challenging target of “ideal.” in the agile zone, standards are clarified and flexible enough to address the normal fluctuations of available time energy and other resources.Bandura social cognitive learning functioning in the agile zone includes shooting for ideals but also acknowledging the value of the full spectrum of good enough. Many things are worth doing imperfectly — while you are learning something new, your attempts may be clumsy, but they are still worthy of acknowledgement.Bandura social cognitive learning agile zone goals support optimal functioning because they encourage you to keep trying even when you aren’t getting it right yet. Goals that aim for the agile zone are attractive and motivating because they anticipate and allow for the inevitable setbacks, mistakes and even failures that are part of the process of achieving any goal.Bandura social cognitive learning instead of agonizing over setbacks and obstacles, setbacks become fuel for learning, creative iteration, and personal growth. Instead of spending a lot of energy trying to make things turn out a certain way, we spend more time creatively adapting tasks to fit the resources we have available and give ourselves credit for making an effort – even if we drop the ball, at least we tried to catch it.Bandura social cognitive learning we trust that if we just keep working on catching it, eventually we will. Mistakes are a natural part of the process.

Agile goals become increasingly meaningful and magnetic to us when we are clear about how they enable us to meet multiple needs simultaneously with one activity.Bandura social cognitive learning designing agile goals involves learning how to integrate needs so that you can accomplish more while actually doing less. Agile goals resolve conflicts between competing needs and values.Bandura social cognitive learning for example, eating high quality, delicious nutritional food on a low budget is challenging. But that doesn’t mean we should completely sacrifice good tasting, good-for-you food to save money.Bandura social cognitive learning you don’t have to choose between eating crap food all the time and saving money. Agile goals are creatively designed to meet long term needs at the same time our short-term needs are also also being satisfied.Bandura social cognitive learning it requires a bit more creative problem-solving, but it is possible to learn how to integrate multiple needs into one goal.

Agile goals are easy to modify as needs change.Bandura social cognitive learning agile goals are open-ended enough that you could meet them in a number of ways. Rather than defining success in a narrow way, they offer targets that guide you in designing and improvising your way to achieving the intentions of your goals.Bandura social cognitive learning agile goals allow you to easily tweak them on the fly, as needed, when available resources change (such as time, attention, energy and money).Bandura social cognitive learning

The agile SMART goal process helps me connect my intention to change my attitude toward cooking to several other emotional, functional and health needs as well.Bandura social cognitive learning the agile goal meets my emotional and cognitive needs for challenge, learning, and mastery development as well my physical needs to enjoy the taste, texture and even visual aspects of the food I eat.Bandura social cognitive learning in addition, my functional need to limit the time I spend cooking and have it take up roughly the same time as fast food must be met. Design is about figuring out solutions and strategies to ensure all ALL my needs are met by the same goal.Bandura social cognitive learning

If you were born to agilize, chances are the conventional approach SMART goals will not inspire you to easily achieve long-term success. You might make a change for a couple weeks then find yourself inexplicably just stopping.Bandura social cognitive learning not achieving your goal feels bad enough, but it is not a benign fleeting kind of pain. The dark side of repeatedly using goal setting strategies that don’t fit you is that the stress actively and cumulatively does HARM to your self-image and to your emotional, mental and physical well-being.Bandura social cognitive learning

Outliers who are growth-oriented, creative, non-linear, intuitive thinkers and who love to learn and explore more than the average person does, need goals that are adaptable, flexible and agile.Bandura social cognitive learning the agile way of goal setting accepts you as you are. Rather than relying on self-control, the agile approach encourages self-understanding and self-leadership to design goals in a way that nurtures your spirit and organically inspires you to achieve beyond what you can even imagine right now.Bandura social cognitive learning using control tactics is not *required* to inspire yourself to do things that are good for you – there are other ways!

Agile goals respect and accommodate your drive to learn and grow.Bandura social cognitive learning the goals you tried on and let go of are your stepping stones to wisdom. All the course corrections you make along the way as you learn are the ingredients needed to develop good judgement and reasoning skills.Bandura social cognitive learning agile goals are designed to change as you learn – without the drama of feeling like you failed to achieve yet another goal.