by ADMIN on JANUARY 4, 2012
It’s the New Year and you’re ready to make a change for a healthier more energize lifestyle.
Whether your goals are to lose weight, eat better, or be less stressed; it’s important to put in place a plan that works for you so that you’ll be most successful in reaching your aspirations this year.
Other people can give you tips and tricks to help you reach your goals, but no one except you can lose the weight or change your eating habits.
Be prepared for challenges ahead, face them dead-on and conquer them! By making a commitment to yourself and allowing yourself to find happiness, you can accomplish anything.
Follow these next steps to create a plan to successfully reach your ‘Healthy You’ Resolutions!
Create Your Vision
Your vision is a compelling statement of who you want to be and what health-promoting behaviors you want to do more consistently.
To figure out your vision, imagine you’re meeting someone for the first time one year from now, and you’re everything you want to be physically, emotionally, and mentally.
Now write the answer to these questions:
What do you look like? What are you wearing? How do you feel?
What are you doing differently from what you’re doing now?
How is your health different from what it is now?
Put your answers together for a succinct Vision that fits who you want to be.
Find Your Motivation
Your motivation should come from deep within and should answer the question “why”. As in “why do you want to lose weight?”, or “why do you want to start eating healthy?” Try to look past external goals such as ‘to be skinny’ or ‘to look great’; as these will only get you so far.
True motivation should be more meaningful – such as “I want to lose weight so that I’m alive to see my children / grandchildren get married,” or I want to eat healthy so that I don’t die of diabetes/cancer/heart disease like my parent did.”
These statements have a profound emotional connection to them and will be more likely to motivate you through the obstacles that you may face on the road to reaching your goals.
To find out your true motivations, answer these questions:
What makes your vision really important to you? Why do you want to reach it?
What would happen if you don’t achieve your goals? How would that feel?
What obstacles might you run into while trying to reach your goals?
What strategies might you use to overcome these obstacles?
These last two points are important. There will be challenges along the way so you should come up with your plan of attack now to be prepared!
Goal Setting
Once you’ve discovered your vision and motivations, it’s time to start setting long and short term goals. Your goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, and timely. For example, if you want to lose weight, you should probably weigh yourself once per week to track your progress. If you want to change your eating habits, perhaps keeping a food log would help you stay in line.
Long Term Goals
Your vision is where you want to be in one year (or two!). Now break that down into 3 month goals. Three months is long enough for you to achieve something but short enough to have you feel a sense of urgency. What do you want to be doing consistently three months from now? What weight do you want to be at? What eating or exercising habits will you have achieved by then?
Make these very specific! How many days per week will you be exercising? What does ‘eat healthier’ mean to you? Define it specifically!
Weekly Goals
Now we get to the most important part. Setting new goals each week is KEY to success! If you try to jump right into your three month goals head-on, it may be too much to handle at once and you may end up feeling like a failure.
Small, reachable goals set each week will bring you lasting success. Baby steps! If you want to be working out 5 days a week in three months, then maybe the first weeks goals should include working out once or twice. If you want to bring lunch to work instead of eating out, then maybe the first weeks goal is to bring lunch once.
Once you feel confident you can accomplish that week’s goals without a hitch, bump up the challenge for the next week.
Last Bits of Advice
Use your support system! Find a group of friends or family who has the same goals so that you’re surrounded by inspiration, encouragement, and accountability. Meet them at the gym so that it’s harder to not show up. Call them when you’re about to eat something you don’t want to. When those you love know your goals they’ll be less likely to undermine your attempts at becoming your Best Self!