This week, in our discussion, we talked about goal-setting and set ourselves at least one but no more than two goals that we wanted to achieve over the course of the next week.
Naz told us that paradoxically, it is small goals that are the ones that are the often the most unattainable.
Why?
Not because they are too 'big' to attain, but because they are too small (and achievable), they tend to end up in the back seat, because there is always tomorrow........
and the next day....
and the day after....
Because we can always come back to them, and we want to plan and focus on the bigger goals, we work hard towards achieving them.
Naz told us that research shows that the brain's response to the achievement of smaller, frequent goals is far greater than the reward that is processed from achieving big (hard to attain) goals.
Naz explained that the feedback from attaining smaller goals leads to greater connectivity between those regions in the brain that play a huge role in something called 'reward processing' - generating satisfaction, a sense of achievement and accomplishment - which in turn improves our well-being. As smaller goals are easier to attain, and can be planned more frequently, the accumulative effect on the brain is a booster, and reinforcer, for more positive reinforcement leading to greater reward being processed by the brain. This, in turn makes us feel better about ourselves.
Simply put, if we can set small, attainable goals, which we then achieve, we can increase our resilience.
So go on, set yourself one or two goals and join us in sharing your progress.
If you are a woman living in the UK with a breast cancer diagnosis and you would like to join our private group please send us a private message via https://www.facebook.com/resilienceinbreastcancer/
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