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Having health and fitness goals are essential to achieving the level of health you wish for yourself.
We often beat ourselves up, complain to friends, and make promises to our physicians about changing the day-to-day behaviors that effect our health. Yet, we seldom set achievable, measurable goals to serve as a launching pad for our healthy change efforts.
Once we acknowledge our dissatisfaction and decide that a healthy life is something we want for ourselves, setting a goal is the next step to making the dream a reality.
Here are a few simple tips on setting health goals that will get you moving in the direction of the change you desire:
1. Start out small and simple. Don’t make a commitment to change overnight. Few people are going to completely change their diet in a week for example.
A more realistic start would be to commit to eating breakfast everyday. In fact, how about eating a banana for breakfast each morning as a start. Fruits require little to no preparation and can be eaten on the go. They require very little change in your morning routine, while initiating the habit of a morning meal.
2. Be specific about your goal. Notice, I decided to eat a specific food for breakfast each morning- a banana. Leaving this up in the air (“eating breakfast everyday”) puts you at the crossroads each morning, having to make a decision about what you want to eat. This alone can be an obstacle to you sticking to the goal.
Avoid having to make decisions in crucial situations (during the moment when have to exhibit the new behavior). Have things in place in advance. Don’t leave room for excuses that the habit mind can latch onto.
3. Tweak your environment to make sticking to your goals easier. Purchase bananas weekly and put one in a place you are sure to see it on your way out of the door in the morning. Part of establishing new habits is remembering to follow through.
If you don’t put reminders in the environment to keep you on track, your mind will operate on auto-pilot. And that means your old habits will continue to dominate your behavior.
4. Give your habit mind the motivation to change. Keep reminding yourself why you want to make the change and what will be the result of the change?
Use visual motivators, like pictures of yourself when you where in better health. Spend more time around people who are in the kind of physical shape you want to attain.
Decide on a reward you will give yourself after you have stuck with the new behavior for 7 days, 14 days, 28 days, etc.
5. Publicize your progress to someone each day. Human beings are social animals. We often find it harder to disappoint others, than to disappoint ourselves.
Inform a supportive family member, friend or associate of your change goal. And each day report your progress- ” I had my banana this morning. That’s 17 days in a row”. Just sharing this with someone else creates positive emotions that will reinforce the behavior.
And the very idea of giving this person(s) a negative report will motivate you to stay on course.
Do you have a change goal? If you do, put these suggestions into effect immediately. Don’t procrastinate. You can begin reaping the benefits today.
If you don’t, share this post with a friend. ; )
