A DREAM IS JUST A DREAM, A GOAL IS A DREAM WITH A PLAN AND A DEADLINE
12 January 2021 — DrinkCoach
DrinkCoach asked Will, Alcohol Advisor from the West Sussex Wellbeing Team to document his new year’s resolution to cut back on alcohol. Read his series of blogs throughout Dry January…
Blog 3/10
GOALS
So the long term goal is to drop below 14 units a week and I’m currently sitting on 57 units a week. This seems like a lot, too much, too big a problem… is it a problem? I mean I’m not really hurting anyone, no one knows that I’m drinking too much, it’s normal if anything (I think a lot of my friends drink a comparable amount — do they ?).
Wait I’m already making excuses, I’m already looking for a way out. This can often be the case when we are confronted by large tasks, they seem too huge to handle and enormous in scale in comparison to the tools we have available to us.
So what I need are some short term goals, something more manageable. 14 units is where I want to be in a months’ time, but where do I want to be by the end of this week? 40 units, why not? Sounds reasonable I mean that’s not that much of a change. I really don’t need to drink on Monday and if the bottle is not open then I won’t be likely to drink on Tuesday. What other day could I knock off? Thursday, I’m just indulging myself, I don’t need to drink whilst I cook. I’m sure I can find a tasty replacement.
So just like that I’ve taken 13 units off my weekly total. Right this is starting to look like a bit of a plan. I think I am going to have to tell my partner what I’m trying to do, I know that I need some accountability otherwise I’ll just make excuses. “I’ll start next week, it’s been a hard day, I deserve this” and before I know it I’ll be back to square one.
SMART
SMART goals are really useful when attempting something new, if you’ve not come across them before it’s an acronym that stands for:
Specific
Measureable
Achievable
Realistic
Targeted
and I think I have applied all of them to this week’s goals. So fingers crossed, but the proof will be in the pudding or more likely the bottle.
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