4 Tips for Setting and Achieving This Year’s Wellness Goals

January 19, 2018

4 Tips for Setting and Achieving This Year’s Wellness Goals

January is the month of new beginnings and the perfect time to set new wellness goals. Everyone wants to live a healthy, long life, but at times this seems a lot easier said than done. Work and school schedules, family commitments, and the daily grind can get in the way of wellness.

red calendar Even those of us who really strive to live healthy lives through nutrition and exercise can miss the mark. These setbacks can lead to discouragement and cause us to give up on our health goals. But it doesn’t have to be that way. By following these four tips, you can make 2018 your healthiest year yet!

#1 On Your Mark, Get Set!

First things first, you must set this year’s goals. If you’ve already done so, feel free to skip to tip two. If you’re still trying to decide what you want to focus on, I can help! Meeting your fitness and wellness goals is similar to running a race, so that’s the word I use when figuring out each year’s wellness focus.

Pictures of dieters getting ready to race

#2 Add Action Steps

R- Realistic
There are some goals that shouldn’t be set because they’re just not realistic! Swearing off sugar forever might seem good on January 1st, but for most people, it will be impossible to never indulge in sweets again. Setting unrealistic wellness goals is just as bad as not setting goals at all. You’re setting yourself up for failure before you even get started!

A- Attainable:
Similarly, make sure every wellness goal you set is attainable. Take for example a friend of mine who set a goal to lose twenty pounds before her high school reunion. This wouldn’t have been a bad goal, except for the fact that her reunion was two weeks away! Setting health goals is useless if they’re not attainable.

C- Chartable:
I like to keep a chart or some other visual form to display my goals. As a rule, if you can’t measure it, it shouldn’t be a goal. So, “I will eat natural foods only” isn’t a good goal. Instead, give a number of days/meals you will focus on eating natural/unprocessed foods and track the days you succeed.

E- Exact:
Finally, make sure that your goals are specific enough to be met. Instead of saying, “my goal is to improve my nutrition,” you might want to set a more specific goal. This generalized wellness goal could be upgraded to “I will eat the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables with every meal.

If just setting goals was enough, millions of new year’s resolutions wouldn’t be forgotten by February 1st. For each goal you set, you should also come up with a couple of action steps New years resolution list for 2018 goals to help you meet your goal. For me, one of 2018 wellness goals is to eat a healthy breakfast every morning. I might hate breakfast, but since I’m always trying to improve my nutrition, I’ve made it a health goal.

For most people, this would seem like an easy goal. But since it’s not something I’m used to; busy mornings could cause me to give up on my goal. So, I’ve set a couple of action steps to help me reach this wellness goal.

Goal- Eat a healthy breakfast at least 5 days a week.

o Action Step 1- Make a monthly breakfast calendar to keep me on track.

o Action Step 2- Meal prep the following week’s breakfast Sunday night.

Just adding these two action steps has helped me stay on track with my new nutrition goal so far.

#3 Celebrate Your Successes

Now that you have your wellness goals set and have added your action steps to make them more attainable, it’s time to get to work! As you move along, meeting your goals, it’s important to celebrate your successes. Even something small, like going a month without drinking soda is a huge deal for someone who found it tough to quit.

Reward yourself when you do well, but not with food if that’s your weakness. Reaching you Successful womans diet r ten-pound weight loss goal might equal a new outfit. Going two weeks without missing a workout might be deserving of a trip to the nail salon.

It’s all about what you think of as a wellness success and celebration. Just remember to set your celebration milestones as you set your health goals so that you have something to look forward to.

#4 Don’t Focus on Disappointments

And when you don’t get their right away or when you make a mistake, don’t give up. Notice I said ‘when’ and not ‘if’. There are bound to be bumps in the road, especially when making big changes and letting go of lifelong, unhealthy habits.

Which reminds me of a story shared by a teacher I know. She decided to quit drinking soda since a can or two a day had led her to pack on several extra pounds. For several weeks, she did fine with avoiding any sugary drinks and only drinking Daily Slim.

But on the night of her school’s parent conference, food was catered in. On her way out of the cafeteria, she noticed a cooler of drinks on ice. On top was a shiny can of orange soda (her all-time favorite.)

Before she knew it, she had downed the whole can. By the time her student’s parents arrived, there wasn’t a drop of soda left, only feelings of regret and shame. Thankfully, she didn’t give up on her goal and is now several months soda free.

You drank a soda when you shouldn’t have? Skipped the gym and binge ate instead? Loaded up on carbs? It’s okay. Just don’t sit in the disappointment of making a bad choice. Instead, focus on why you gave into old habits and come up with ways to meet your wellness goals despite mistakes.

Have you set new wellness goals this year? Feel free to share them with me on social media or email me at hello@phsyiquetea.com

Have a beauTEAful day.

Love,

Asti