Have a plan – Process goals

The best way to counter stress and anxiety is to have a plan. You have your goals, you’ve set that out long ago (p. 8), but thinking about those long-term plans can actually make you more anxious – you want to lose 10 kg, but nothing has happened this week; or you want to pass English comfortably, but you still haven’t started on the apparently impossible reading list. Let’s focus on the process rather than the outcome, and develop habits or “process goals” to get you there.

Ask yourself what you can do today, and tomorrow, and this week, to get closer to your goal.

To control your weight, you may decide to

• stop drinking fizzy cool drinks
• have a glass of water before every meal
• go for a brisk walk every afternoon at 5 o’ clock.

To achieve a good mark for English, you may

• get up half an hour earlier to read the books on the list
• spend another half hour in the afternoon writing about that reading, using Microsoft Word’s spelling and grammar check to improve your writing ability.

Don’t reconsider these plans every time; decide once and then just do it. At the end of every day, give yourself a pat on the back for having achieved your process goals for the day. If you haven’t managed to do so, take a leaf out of the Alcoholics Anonymous playbook: one day at a time! Start again tomorrow.

Develop habits/process goals to help you on your way to your big dream

Here’s a template to help you think about it: