Many have a desire to take their health more seriously for a variety of reasons from wanting to become comfortable in the body that they exist in to wishing to have more good days than bad. Health consists of physical, mental, and spiritual health, so these health goals should take all these facets into consideration, hopefully leading to improved overall quality of life.
Anyone can say that they want to accomplish something, but it takes strategy to turn those words and ideas into action. In order to experience actual progress on said goals, it is important to follow the SMART goals model. SMART is short for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. Following this format can help with narrowing down what one want to achieve, knowing where to direct one’s effort, and boosting the likelihood of success with achieving those goals.
First is to get specific. “Be healthier” is very broad, and as mentioned earlier, health includes physical, mental, and spiritual well-being, thus setting separate goals that will cover each of these sectors can lead to greater success obtaining overall health.
M stands for measurable, meaning that there should be a way to track/measure progress on the task at hand. A measurable health goal would be to complete at least 30 minutes of weight training 3 days a week. With that measurable goal put in place, one can easily observe how often they are hitting that goal each week, and from there, continue to increase the frequency and/or length of each workout session every 2 months. Eventually, one may hit the end goal of an hour and half, 5 days per week. Setting metrics to meet may wake up that competitive spirit from within, raising the determination to win this “competition” against the part of oneself that wants to take the easy way out.
The attainable criteria is about creating goals that are challenging enough that it forces one out of their comfort zone and applies a healthy level of stress. Yet they are still within individual financial, physical, time, and mental limits. Aiming for goals that are outside of these limits can result in disappointment from the inability to regularly achieve the goal and that can become discouraging in the long-run. A sense of self-efficacy is a power force of inner motivation to keep going, so making sure goals are attainable will protect that self-efficacy from getting tested in a harmful way. Realisticness goes hand-in-hand with attainability, as it is essential for goals to be something that can be attained without overextending oneself and is truly something that one wants primarily for oneself and not someone else.
As discussed earlier, there should be a trackable aspect to the goals. Thus, having an approximate or specific deadline for achieving a goal can push oneself to show up everyday and work on taking a step forward, even if it is a baby step. There will be inconveniences that appear frequently that will try to get in the way of working towards one’s goals, but having that timeframe in mind may light a fire under oneself, so that one puts these long-term goals high on the priority list.
