goal sisters

What makes the GS process unique is how the following five ingredients are combined and used by women interested in making lasting changes in their lives:

Support

Flip through any women’s fitness magazine, and you’re bound to find an article that describes how women accomplish their fitness goals using a buddy system. Giving and receiving ongoing support with your Goal Sister can help you accomplish more than just fitness goals; it also works well for spiritual goals, creativity goals, relationship goals, and others. We’re talking about emotional, physical, social, and problem-solving support. Being supportive can range from telling your Goal Sister “I believe in you” when she’s nervous about making a presentation in front of a large audience, to sending her a card letting her know you’ll be with her “in spirit” when she’s going through a difficult breakup with her boyfriend, to helping her paint a few walls in her house before she puts it up for sale. It may be a cliché, but our Goal Sister Motto works: Helping You Helps Me!

Motivation

As women, we’re accustomed to cheering on our children, our best friends, and anyone we care about; it comes naturally to most of us. Goal Sisters motivate each other to take the first step, the second step, even the two-hundredth step toward achieving their goals. Most people lapse here and there after making changes in their lives. It’s hard to stay motivated on your own, and it can be very hard to stick to new routines and lifestyles. That’s where your Goal Sister comes in. She might motivate you by saying “You can do it!” when you need an extra boost to meet your writing deadline or by sending you healthy recipes when you’re trying to cut back on fatty foods. There are endless ways for you and your Goal Sister to keep each other motivated and on track with your goals.

Accountability

Despite a desire to set and attain goals, many women never initiate change, while others slip back into old feelings and behaviors before making any significant changes. There are many reasons why this happens. Sometimes the changes you make don’t stick because your new routine becomes boring. Sometimes your significant others, family, or friends may try to bring you back to the old status quo when your progress threatens your relationships with them. You may even begin to doubt yourself. Your Goal Sister can keep you accountable to your goals by using gentle nudges (“How are you coming with drinking eight glasses of water a day?”), pointed questions (“If you want to start your mornings with a five-minute meditation, why did you just agree to carpool the kids to the 6:00 A.M. swimming class?”), or piercing zaps (“Actions speak louder than words!”).

Interest and Investment

Sometimes it’s awkward to talk about the kinds of changes we’d like to make in our lives or how we’re going about making those changes. For example, it’s not always easy to tell others that you want more meaning in your life, or to share your experiences with trying a new self-help program. That’s not the kind of conversation we typically have with others over coffee. Often, we hesitate to share our dreams with others because we’re afraid of their reactions. “What if they think I’m ridiculous? What if they laugh?” When you share your dreams with your Goal Sister, she’ll ask you to tell her more about them and why achieving them matters so much. She’ll do so without judgment and preconceived notions about your abilities and your level of commitment. That’s one of her gifts to you: caring about your goals, and being invested in helping you achieve them.

Fun and Focus

Many self-help authors discourage their readers from having fun while setting and attaining goals. We understand where that mindset comes from; we grew up hearing many messages about keeping work and play separate. We also live in a culture that promotes the independent woman forging ahead to have higher status and pay in order to buy more possessions. While this may be a popular belief, it doesn’t bode well for those of us who want to balance it all while improving ourselves. We believe that you can do just that. Goal Sisters can have fun while staying focused on achieving their goals. For example, you and your Goal Sister can hold a meeting at a neighborhood pool and swim around while talking about your health goals. Keeping fun in the mix helps make the goal-setting process less cumbersome!

Copyright © 2004-2010 by Michelle Beaulieu Pillen, Ph.D., and Ann Leach. All rights reserved. No part of this Web site may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise.