Effective Goal Setting for a Healthier Lifestyle

We are changing seasons and starting to step into our routines again. Families are coming back from long vacations, kids are going to school, and we are navigating our new normal. With this new routine, we are setting our goals to add healthy lifestyle decisions into our lives for the rest of the year. For example, we may want to be healthier or be more active. While these goals are great to have, they are vague and lack a clear timeline. When setting up goals for ourselves and others, we must come at it in a way that reflects a holistic approach to focus on lifestyle habits instead of physical parameters. To do this, we can use S.M.A.R.T. goals to help us create changes and set action-oriented goals to make healthy habits. 

S.M.A.R.T. is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Let's go through what each step means and how to integrate effective goals into our lives. 

Specific: When you are setting your goals, they should be easy to understand. Say "I want to be healthy" is too general. There are so many ways to "be healthy," how are you going to achieve this? By changing your language to "I want to lose weight," you are already more specific with your goal.

Measurable: Now that your goal is clear, "I want to lose weight," how do your measure that? How will you know when you have met your goal? First, you must add a numerical value to it.

Attainable: Before we add a value to your goal, we must make sure we can meet it. We do not want to set the goal to be too easy as we will lose motivation to continue through. However, while it may be good to reach for the stars, we do not want to be too extreme either. We must know our limits. Studies have shown that 5%-10% weight loss is attainable for most people. Let's set this goal to losing 8% of our body weight. 

Relevant: Goals are important as they reflect where you are at this moment in life. Your goals must be relevant to you and only you. Having pressure put on you by an outside factor is not motivating. Examine your plan so far, and make sure that you are setting it for yourself. If you are not excited about weight loss, maybe reconsider your goal and find something that you are motivated by. 

Time-bound: The Final step in S.M.A.R.T. is Time-bound. Set a timeline for yourself to get motivated and stay motivated. Say you want to lose 2 pounds a week as that is considered to be a healthy weight loss. For our example, we will set our goal to 3 months, and we will lose 8% of our body weight. 

Now that we have our S.M.A.R.T. goal, we must include action-oriented goals to help meet our S.M.A.R.T. goal. These action-oriented goals may be things like:

 "I will run for 30 minutes 5 days a week."

"I will elevate my heart rate to 60 B.P.M. for 45 minutes through exercise once a day." 

"I will drink 36 oz of water per day to stay hydrated."

"I will meal plan my dinners to include 3 cups of veggies and 1.5 cups of fruit."

These action-oriented goals are clear and lead to performance and creating change. 

A Guide For S.M.A.R.T Goal Setting

https://www.acefitness.org/education-and-resources/lifestyle/blog/6763/a-guide-for-s-m-a-r-t-goal-setting/

Cornell Health S.M.A.R.T. Goals.

https://health.cornell.edu/sites/health/files/pdf-library/smart-goals.pdf

It's Not About Physical Fitness – It's About Life Fitness

https://www.acefitness.org/education-and-resources/professional/expert-articles/7942/it-s-not-about-physical-fitness-it-s-about-life-fitness/