Practical Action Goal System to Self-Improve

The PAG System For Dentists

‘You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.’ – James Clear

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Companion Video:

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Motivation wanes and the typical goal we set for ourselves most often falls into a pile of lost dreams buried under yet another New Year’s Resolution.  For consistent and predictable improvement to occur, we can not simply depend on motivation of a far off goal.  The feeling of motivation comes and goes. It is not consistent.  Yet the bedrock of self improvement is consistency.  Far too often the goals we set are too abstract to be functionally useful (other than to temporarily motivate).

For example:

-I want to get in shape

-I want my practice to produce more

-I want a better social life

-I want to communicate with my patients better to improve case acceptance

These types of goals alone are quite close to useless – again, other than as temporary motivation.  These are simply statements of desire which in no way have a functional or practical action attached to them.  When confronted with this, many people will say ‘ah ha!’ I know how to make the goals better, I need to make them specific!

So the above goals may easily transform into:

–I want to lose 20 pounds of fat

–I want my practice to produce an extra $20,000 each month

–I want to make 10 new friends

–I want my case acceptance to increase by 15%

These goals are hardly any better.  They still fall into the same trap of having no practical action attached to them.  All you have done is simply add a number/numerical value to the goal.  Yet the goal is still not actionable, and actions are the only things you can truly do to influence, change, and grow towards your desired outcome of improvement.

You can no easier snap your fingers and ‘get in shape’ than you can get out of bed tomorrow, snap your fingers, and ‘lose 20 pounds.’

To really get things done, you need to have actions laid out in front of you that you can physically take that will lead you to these goals.

In the Companion Video which I have shared above, you will see a video demonstration of a sample system I have been using to do just that.  This Practical Action Goal System (PAG System) is not to list off our daily obligations like doing our laundry, brushing our teeth, showing up to work each day.  The PAG system detailed in the video above is to break above our own personal status quo.  The types of outcomes which meet the criteria to make it onto this list would be things that if we never did them our lives would remain just about the same. This is about going beyond that and having a system for doing so.  It is well documented that having a system versus a vague goal leads to much greater improvement.  See James Clear’s book ‘Atomic Habits.’ 

So let’s break down what the PAG System actually is and how you can construct your own PAG System. I will also give some brief examples of how I have put this into use for myself to improve.  If you click here, you can download a template sample document to review and edit for yourself!

Start With Broad Outcomes and Break into Simple Actions

For the PAG System we will start broad for general guidance to improve our lives.  These Broad Outcomes are just to get us thinking about what we actually need to do to attain said outcome.  The average person way of thinking will leave things at just the broad outcome goal, and then the individual will become confused as time has rolled by and they are no closer to attaining said goal.

I like to first break my broad outcomes into Major Categories, this is easier for organizational purposes when scrolling through my Google Doc on the go.  Major categories for you may include categories of life such as:

-Business

-Dentistry Skills

-Social Life

-Home Life

-Family Life

-Personal Health

-Personal Finances 

Once the Major Categories are selected, you can start to fill them out with your desired Broad Outcomes accordingly.  This is demonstrated above in the companion video which you can watch above and also showcased in the downloadable sample document here.  Briefly, for example under the Major Category of Personal Health you may list Broad Outcomes such as the following:

PERSONAL HEALTH (Major Category)

• Get better sleep (Broad Outcome)
• Lose 20 pounds  (Broad Outcome)

An example for the Dentistry Skills Major Category could be:

DENTISTRY SKILLS (Major Cateogory)

• Learn Ortho (Broad Outcome)
• Fewer Lab Case Remakes (Broad Outcome)

Again, I recommend storing all of this in a Google Doc because it will be easily and quickly accessbile from both your computer and any mobile device you happen to have.

Assign Practical Actions to the Broad Outcomes

Next in the PAG System; now that we have established what our Broad Outcomes are, we are at the most important part of the system – generating and assigning the actual Practical Actions which you will take to accomplish the goals.  These Practical Actions are of course what the Practical Action Goal System is named after.  Everything which will comprise this list is an instant actionable feat which you can complete in a given moment (or few).  Whereas you can not snap your fingers and lose 20 pounds, you can pretty instantly go on Amazon an order a scale to weigh your food portions, which is an action that may directly lead you closer to losing your 20 pounds.  See the difference?

Where as the desired Broad Outcome is large an daunting, the Practical Actions are by design small and simple.  The smaller and simpler the better.  When you complete one of these actions the system is to check-off a completion box on your list.  Checking off a completion box gives a tiny hit of dopamine to trigger our reward system.  These are basic principles of gamification that we can apply to our own lives and self-improvement.  Once you have checked off the box, you will feel accomplished and good.  You will see and know that you are moving closer to your Broad Outcome goal.  This will reinforce the positive habits you are estalishing and keep you moving forward.

If you notice that a check-box has gone unchecked (incomplete) for an extended period of time – this is a red flag. 

Remember, the Practical Actions must be just that – practical.  They must be small, easy, and convenient enough for you to actually do them and work them into your life.  If you are not actually accomplishing the action and checking off the box – then the action you have dictated may not be practical in your current life.  Even if the item on your list already seems small and simple, reality is staring you in the face.  The task is currently either too great or too inconvenient for you to practically complete.  When this happens – you must break it into an even small goal.  Even if doing so feels childish or silly.  For example, if one of your practical actions is to “Eat an apple every morning,” but you sadly realize that all of the apples you bought are rotting away in the kitchen.

This indicates that “Eat an apple every morning,” is too great a task for you.  It is not a Practical Action. At least not for you right now in the present moment at your current level. So break it down into something easier and smaller. Perhaps you break it down into: “Move the apples into my bedroom on my night stand.”  It may seem silly to have a bowl of apples on your nightstand, but when those apples are the very first thing you see each morning – there may be a greater chance you actually eat one and accomplish your goal of eating an apple every morning.

Let’s now take our sample sample lists from above for Personal Health and Dentistry Skills and apply some sample Practical Actions which someone could choose to apply.  Recall, you want to break the outcomes into simple and small actions that you could take almost immediately and accomplish almost immediately if you wanted to.  Let’s go for it:

PERSONAL HEALTH (Major Category)

• Get better sleep (Broad Outcome)
  • Set a timer on my phone to ring each night at 10:00PM to remind me to go to sleep (Practical Action)
  • Have my phone charger on opposite side of bedroom to avoid snooze button or night scrolling (Practical Action)
  • Buy a new comfortable pillow from Amazon (Practical Action)
  • Buy a White Noise machine from Amazon (Practical Action)
    • Browse White Noise machines on Amazon
    • Add 2 White Noise machines you like to your ‘Wish List’ on Amazon.
    • Buy your favorite of the two from your wish list.

OBSERVE:  For ‘Buy a White Noise machine from Amazon’ there are additional check boxes.  This may be because we noticed that the task was not getting completed.  Two weeks may have gone by and we notice that we still have not bought the darn White Noise machine.  It was too great of a task.  So the task had to be broken down into smaller pieces.  Before we can buy the machine we must simply browse the selection on Amazon.  To get that ‘check’ we don’t even have to buy it, just browse.  In that, we are closer to the goal.  When browsing you can click two machines that you like and have them added to your Amazon Wish List.  Then at a later time, you pick one of the two.  As you can observe, we have shown how to break down ‘Buy a White Noise machine from Amazon’ into smaller and more practical actions.  And these small, little, silly actions eventually add up to the Broad Outcome of getting better sleep and improving your personal health.

• Lose 20 pounds  (Broad Outcome)
  • Download app to track daily calorie intake
  • Weigh self each morning
    • Buy a scale
    • Put scale in bathroom outside of shower
  • Throw away all sugary snacks in the house
  • Buy Healthy Foods Only
    • Make a list of healthy foods
    • Select favorite healthy goods
    • Put favorite healthy foods on a list in phone and grocery shop from that
  • Research weightloss templates for exercising
    • Find a weightloss exercise template which resonates and print out
    • Staple weightloss exercise template into a packet
    • Have the packet on the kitchen table so it is seen daily

DENTISTRY SKILLS (Major Category)

• Learn Ortho (Broad Outcome)
  • Write a list of 5 people I know who are good at ortho
    • Send each of them an email or text asking them how I can best get started
  • Research the most popular Beginner Ortho CE on the market
    • Make a list of 3
    • Register for one of the CE
    • Complete the CE
  • Join an Ortho Facebook Group
  • Create an Organized Self-Study Binder for Ortho
    • Buy a binder and Label as ‘Self-Study Ortho’
    • Create a Google Doc to log information, cases, helpful tips and facts about ortho
    • Print the Google Doc every 5 pages and add to the physical binder

• Fewer Lab Case Remakes (Broad Outcome)
  • Call each of my labs
    • Ask them what changes they would like to see from me
    • Ask for a tour of the lab
    • Ask them what their ‘best dentists’ do differently than the rest
  • Review impression technique
    • List 3 areas which I could improve on my technique
    • Record self taking impression
    • Send recording to prosthodontist friend for feedback

Above were just a few examples of the PAG System strucutre of MAJOR CATEGORY –> BROAD OUTCOME –> PRACTICAL ACTION

This structure has worked well for me and I hope it works well for you.  Again, you can download a template here to get your own PAG System Google Doc started.

High-Friction Changes

One more thing to go over is the idea of High-Friction Changes.  A High-Friction Change is an important concept to understand to help the system work.  When we are deciding which Practical Actions to write on our checklists, we want them to be High-Friction.  Inherent laziness and lack of desire to change, is well, a huge cause of laziness and lack of actual positive change.  With High-Friction Changes we can use our inherent laziness to our advantage.  Claiming power over your own laziness and harnessing it in a useful and productive way is basically hacking the system.  High-Friction Changes allow that to happen.

A High-Friction Change will often encompass making some sort of physical change to your environment.  Something that requires a small initial output of energy to cause some sort of semi-permanent change which you would  have to go out of your way to undo.  The change makes it easier to do the desired outcome than the undesired outcome.

Here is a simple example to illustrate the point of a High-Friction Change (what we want) versus a Low-Friction Change (which are less effective).

Low-Friction Change:  You plug your phone into an outlet far from your bed, so that when your wake up alarm goes off in the morning you need to get up and walk over to your phone.

You do this to reduce your ability to hit the snooze button and sleep in as well as to keep your phone out of reach to avoid night scrolling which will reduce your sleep quality.  This goes well for a few days, but on one particular night you are extra sleepy and decide to just plug your phone into the outlet at your bedside in arms reach.  When morning comes you realize that you spent 20 minutes night scrolling on your phone and you hit the snooze button 3 times.  Now you are right back into your bad habits because of a moment of extra sleepiness/weakness on a given night.  You must now take the energy to re-establish your good habits.

High-Friction Change: You MOVE YOUR BED so that there is not an outlet near your bed, and it is not even possible to plug your phone in within arms reach.

This is a High-Friction Change because you are very, very unlikely on a very sleepy night to decide to drag your entire bed across the ground to the otherside of the room just so that you can plug your phone in and keep in nearby.  The odds of you doing that are much, much, much lower than simply plugging your phone into the nearest outlet at your bedside on a sleepy night.  We have leveraged our laziness, or moments of lower motivation, to make the desired outcome the easiest choice.  Moving your bed to a different part of the room was a more drastic physical change which has more friction (quite literally in this example) preventing you from going back to your undesired way of doing things.

-Kaizen (Get a little bit better, every day) –