We’ve kicked off a New Year – yay! For many of us, that means we’ve also made some new goals and resolutions, particularly when it comes to our health. Having goals is great. But how do we stick to them and achieve results?
Having clear goals and especially writing them down, helps you to get clear on where you want to go AND also helps propel you to get there. To really improve your outcomes, it helps to also share your goals with others. Tell your friends and family or post about it on your social media channels. This helps to hold you accountable in seeing these goals through. If you don’t have people in your network to help hold you accountable, hire someone! Depending on what your goal may be, this could be a coach, trainer, health practitioner, etc.
Tips to achieving your goals:
- Create clear, specific, measurable goals.
- Write your goals down.
- Share your goals with others.
- Enlist accountability partners.
Now, let’s also add: get curious, have fun with it and be forgiving.
Why’s that? Well, here comes the tough part. You likely will slip-up or have other issues come up that could derail or discourage you. That’s almost inevitable. It’s rarely a straight shot from point A (your current state) to point B (your desired state). And that is OKAY. It is perfectly normal to have slip-ups, difficulties and side-steps along the way. That is NORMAL. The main thing here is to find your way back, heading toward what you really want. It’s about making progress, not perfection.
This concept is hard for those of use with perfectionist tendencies to appreciate, but it’s so true. Try not to get discouraged if things get slightly off-track or don’t go according to plan (or you slip-up in your habits, etc). Instead, notice what happened, and get curious about why. See if you can connect some dots in terms of noticing patterns or underlying triggers for what happened. (Hint: there are often emotional patterns/triggers involved). Noticing this will help you with self-awareness and preventing similar slip-ups in the future. Then, accept what happened, forgive yourself and move on.
Remind yourself of where you want to be, but also enjoy getting there. Don’t spend the journey of bettering yourself by beating yourself up. Realize that improvement and progress is a process.
Here are some next-level tips for achieving your goals:
- Get curious about your “slip-ups” and why they happen. Try to note both patterns and triggers.
- Enlist support from an unbiased third party who can help assess your progress.
- Compare to baseline (where you started), not yesterday.
- Don’t become attached to “losses.” Recognize that they happen, accept it, forgive and move on.
- Appreciate what IS working for you – make note of all small wins.
- Have fun with it! Your goals may be serious, but your approach and attitude doesn’t need to be – it’s okay to laugh, play and have fun on the journey!
Here’s to making lasting, sustainable improvements this year AND enjoying the process!