The Power Tool of Goal Setting: B-RAM

The last couple posts I talked about some of the essential components to success including taking action and writing out your goal. Without them you can’t even get started. But what will keep you going once you do get started? All the best intentions are not going to help you when things get really challenging.

Take dieting, as an example. You go out to eat and you’re sitting there with your Caesar salad while your companions chow down prime rib and pizza and your mouth is salivating nonstop. You begin to wonder why in the world are you are dieting when you could just be enjoying yourself. But, the next day, a glance at yourself in the mirror makes you smile or you end up out playing ball with the kids for an hour instead of just ten minutes. That’s when it’s easy to remember why you’re changing the way you eat and, in those moments, you can honestly say you don’t miss those Grande mochas with whipped cream in the morning. Until your co-worker walks in with one and, again, you forget why you’re dieting. It’s then that you need a true will power tool.

That tool is something I call B-RAM. You can read about it in Chapter 7 of my book, How to Ignite Your Passion for Living. B-RAM stands for Benefits, Reasons, and Motivations. It’s a list of the real end goals you’re after. Losing weight isn’t just about looking good—it’s about feeling better, getting off medication, reducing your risk of disease, and increasing your energy so you can do more for yourself and your family. You know this is why you do it but in those really trying moments, they are just hard to remember.

With a B-RAM list though, all you do is pull the list out and read it over. You keep that list as handy as possible. Maybe you put it on your phone, on an index card in your wallet, or on sticky notes posted on your glove compartment and bathroom mirror. The important thing about your B-RAM list is that it must list every single benefit, reason, and motivation that will make this goal worth working so hard for. The longer the list, the easier it will be to keep on track. And if you can do that, just keep yourself going, soon you won’t have to wonder why you work so hard. Because you’ll be living with those benefits, not just reading about them.