Rather than "I will achieve this fixed thing" I say "I will change my behaviour in this manner for this amount of time and see what happens".
It works so much better. It emphasises that the only thing I can control: my behaviour.
Or not: plenty of times the thing that happened is that I couldn't keep up the desired behaviour for the desired time. That is also a valid outcome.
I am not in control of events, or circumstances, or other people's behaviour, or any of the other things that determine whether I succeed in achieving a goal or not. Because the effort is not linked to the outcome, when it's clear that the effort is not going to achieve the outcome, then that doesn't disincentivise the effort. The effort becomes the point. Which is really valuable in its own right.
Rather than "I will achieve this fixed thing" I say "I will change my behaviour in this manner for this amount of time and see what happens".
It works so much better. It emphasises that the only thing I can control: my behaviour.
Or not: plenty of times the thing that happened is that I couldn't keep up the desired behaviour for the desired time. That is also a valid outcome.
I am not in control of events, or circumstances, or other people's behaviour, or any of the other things that determine whether I succeed in achieving a goal or not. Because the effort is not linked to the outcome, when it's clear that the effort is not going to achieve the outcome, then that doesn't disincentivise the effort. The effort becomes the point. Which is really valuable in its own right.