Hey Reader

One of the hardest parts of goal planning is accounting for the unpredictability of life.

Sometimes it’ll be random plans that pop up and interrupt what was otherwise going to be time to get things done.

It could be waking up feeling tired, unwell, or with a migraine.

Or it could even be having a chronic health condition and not knowing whether you're going have the energy or lower pain level necessary to do the tasks that your goal requires.

If left unaccounted for, the unpredictabilities of life can mean our goals and intentions either don't get completed, or it takes us months or years to get them done.

We may have a bunch of projects we want to tackle and achieve, but the unpredictable leaves us feeling uncapable as action taking get put off time and time again.

When all of our goal actions are set with the most-productive-us in mind, it can leave any other version of us feeling defeated.

So how can we make progress even on the days that aren't ideal?

Let's have a look 👀

The idea - Set high-bar/low-bar goal actions

A lot of the action steps we set for our goals typically come with a list of requirements.

The tasks that have these requirements are what I consider "high-bar" actions. They're the ones that can be done by our realistic self on a good-to-perfect day.

They don't require you to be a perfect person, but they do require you to have a certain set of resources in order to accomplish.

While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, on some days we just don't have those resources available to us.

Maybe the day is jampacked with other appointments and activities.

Maybe you woke up feeling exhausted and even doing the bare minimum feels like a stretch.

Maybe your current available funds don't accommodate what you had planned.

Maybe the person you're working with or getting help from isn't available.

Or maybe it's something else entirely 😝

While time, energy, money, or assistance aren't always going to be available, that doesn't mean that we should only leave taking action to those handful of days where the conditions are ideal.

This is where the "low-bar" actions come in 😈

Thinking about the list of requirements for your action steps, we want to make a version of those tasks that don't have as many needs.

The low-bar version of a goal action will really depend on what that action is, but we can use the typical requirements to give ourselves some guiding questions:

• What version of this action step takes less time?
• What version of this action step takes less energy?
• What version of this action step is free?
• What version of this action step can I do without assistance?
• What version of this action step can I do even when in pain?

I find that setting a high-bar and a low-bar actions works best for any goals that require routines to make progress, but we can also use them for goals that are a sequence of one-off steps.

Thinking about a routine-based goal like becoming more flexible, the high-bar/low-bar could be the difference between a full stretching routine and some light stretches in bed.

For a goal with one-off actions like writing a book, this could be writing a full chapter versus writing some notes about possible scenes to include.

Often the advice we get about tackling low-energy or low-capacity days is to just see what we can do in the moment.

While this is definitely decent advice, having pre-set low-bar actions is still my preference.

On the days where we are feeling lower energy or have less capacity, we don't want to waste those resources deciding what we could do.

Instead, we've done the decision making up front and have a plan for ourselves that accounts for having less to give on those days.

Not only this, but having low-bar actions already set helps us combat disappointment from not getting "enough" done.

You've already acknowledged and accounted for the days that you have less to give, so instead of "not living up to expectations", you're operating within them.

The low-bar is the expectation for that day; it's part of the plan already.

Let's take action

Looking at the list of action steps you have for your goals, consider how you can pre-design what those could look like for the version of you who doesn't have the time, energy, money, or assistance to complete it as written.

You don't have to do that version of the action step every day, but for the days when you don't have more to give, it can be really helpful to have that already set as the expectation.

Shout-out to Chelsea who requested this topic. Hopefully you found it helpful 💜

If you have a request for a future newsletter, just let me know!

Until next time!

- Jess