DOMINO EFFECT: LET’S GO TO THE MOON… OUT OF THIS WORLD GOAL SETTING
ARE YOU ON A TRAJECTORY THAT WILL TAKE YOU TO YOUR MOON GOAL?
700 DAYS ALCOHOL-FREE – HOW DID I ACHIEVE THIS?
Earlier this week I celebrated 700 days alcohol-free. I don’t count days daily any more, but I do count years and was fully aware that 700 is only 30 short of 730, which means two whole years off the booze is fast approaching.
A large part of the success in hitting this 700 Days comes down to the way I set my goals and the Domino Effect – one of the best metaphors I have seen for goal setting and goal achievement.
When I first started this new AF life, numbers like 700 seemed so far away, they were numbers I could only dream about. Whether you are thinking of taking a break from alcohol, have just started out, or are in your first few months, I am sure, if you are like me, you’ll be thinking the same.
THE DOMINO EFFECT
Making major changes in your life, like stopping drinking, can seem like huge impossible challenges. But the trick is not to look at it this way, and this is where the Domino Effect comes into play. Do not look up at Everest and fear its height. Instead look down on it and look at the journey as a series of small steps. Each step making you stronger and having more power and confidence to keep moving forward and take the next step. Just like the ancient Chinese proverb attributed to Lao Tze, which says, ‘A journey of 1,000 miles starts with a first step.’
Set your moon shot as your target and then come back down to earth on the journey to achieve it. My moon shot is to be alcohol-free, to be healthy and fit, to be caring, to be present, to be happy.
If you take a standard domino and push it into another domino it will knock it over. But here’s the interesting bit, a domino can knock over another domino, which is up to 50% larger in size. This is called the geometric force in physics. So if the first domino is four centimetres high then it can knock over a domino six centimetres high and that domino can knock over a domino nine centimetres high, and so on. The effect shows that behaviours effect each other.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JCm5FY-dEY
If you start with a standard five-centimetre domino, then by the 17th domino you would have knocked over a domino as high as the Tower of Pisa; by the 23rd a domino as high the Eiffel Tower; by the 31st a domino as high as Everest and by the 57th a domino that would touch the moon – so you would get your moon goal!
You can achieve so much more than you ever thought possible by just knocking over the first domino and building momentum towards your goals and dreams. As each tiny domino falls, you start believing new things about yourself and building identity-based habits.
The Domino Effect is about progress, not results. Simply maintain the momentum. Let the process repeat as one domino automatically knocks down the next.
In the words of Stanford professor BJ Fogg, ‘You can never change just one behaviour. Our behaviours are interconnected, so when you change one behaviour, other behaviours also shift.’
CREATE A COMPELLING FUTURE
On day 1 I created a long- term goal or a compelling future. Every day, I told myself who I am through incantations. ‘I am a non-drinker; I am healthy; I am present’. This reinforced my ‘I am a non-drinker’ new story. Compelling future statements can be incredibly powerful. Just look at what President John F Kennedy told the American people in 1960. He said the USA would put a man on the moon by the end of that decade. That was a compelling future. And they did it.
THE GOALS I SET MYSELF
All my goals follow the Domino Effect and this is part of the secret of how to successfully achieve most things in life!
So, my first domino was stopping drinking alcohol. This led to me naturally waking up early, the second domino, as I was no longer tired from the effects of alcohol and felt healthier and had more drive. Waking and getting up between 0500 and 0530 led to the third domino, which was doing something healthy that improved my fitness and this became going for a 9KM walk. This led to the fourth domino, which is to meditate daily for 15 minutes on the 9KM walk, and so on. Other dominos on my journey have included, writing and publishing an ‘alcohol quit lit’ book, studying and passing a diploma in positive psychology coaching, building a new publishing and coaching business, walking 9KM every day for 18 months totalling over 5,000 kms before breakfast, learning to play the piano and so on… By month five of stopping drinking alcohol, lots of dominos had fallen and bigger ones were starting to topple.
The momentum keeping my rocket and me on the trajectory to ‘my moon’ was fuelled by my daily, or journey, goals, which had evolved into:
Journey Goal 1 – every day, do not drink alcohol today
Journey Goal 2 – every day, get up between 5am and 5.30am and go for a minimum 9km walk
Journey Goal 3 – every day, meditate for 15 minutes
In short, I was achieving major milestones by taking small steps consistently. It’s easier to set goals for today if you have goals for the week. It’s easier to set goals for the week, if you have goals for the month. It’s easier to set goals for the month, if you have goals for the year. It’s easier to set a one-year goal if you have a five-year goal, and so on.
In year 1, my one-year goal was to have spent the last year alcohol-free, the setting of daily Journey Goals was taking me to the moon.
My book, Walking Back To Happiness The Secret To Alcohol-free Living & Well-being shows you how I did it and how you can do it.
What’s your compelling future and what are your daily goals that will put you on the trajectory that will get you to your moon?
© Copyright Nigel Jones 2022. The moral right of the author has been asserted. All rights reserved.
LINKS
If you are questioning your alcohol consumption or already taking a break from it and seeing the huge benefits that brings please feel free to get in touch. You can contact me through:
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