Picture Courtesy of Best Western Hotel Cantur’s Photostream
Can you believe the 3rd week of January is just about done? How many of you are still keeping up with your New Year’s Resolutions? Did you know that it takes about 21 days for a new habit to form? And today is the 21st day of 2016….so how are you doing? This week’s tips will give you some insight on how to make SMART goals and maintain the motivation to keep you working towards a healthier you for 2016.
Set SMART Goals
A very successful method that helps my clients achieve their goals, is using the SMART strategy. A SMART goal is Specific, Measurable, Accountable, Realistic, and Time-bound. Instead of stating “I will go to the gym 3 days a week”, I encourage my clients to really plan out their goal. A revised SMART goal would be stated as follows: “I will go to the gym and use the elliptical for 30 minutes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings from 6-6:30am”. This goal is specific, measurable, accountable, realistic and time-bound. Continue to revise your goals into SMART goals, and you will see a difference in how you approach and ultimately achieve them over time.
Create Goal Checkpoints
So you have made some goals, now what? Set times each month for yourself to sit down and evaluate your progress. You can make it fun, by scheduling a coffee break on a Sunday morning to review your progress. When you write your goals down using the SMART strategy, it is easy to go back and evaluate your level of success on meeting your goals. For example, how many times did you actually stay on the elliptical for 30 minutes per week? By conducting monthly checkpoints on your goals, you are able to see your progress and readjust if necessary to meet your overall goal by the end of the year.
Make Exercise a Habit in 2016!
All of us are getting older, and exercise is one of the key habits to maintaining good health. I am not saying that you have to be at a gym 24/7, rather look for ways to increase your movement most days of the week. A common misconception about the whole 30 minutes a day exercise rule, is that the exercise has to be done all at the same time. Not true! It can be 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there. Consider your lunch break. If you have a 30 minute break, try to eat in about 15 minutes and use the other 15 minutes for a short walk. You will come back from lunch feeling energized, satisfied and ready to continue on with the workload ahead of you. If you are able to do this 5 days a week, you will get 1.25 hours of exercise in each week just over your lunch break. Add to it longer distances to walk from your car to the store, taking the stairs vs. an elevator, and in no time you will achieve your 30 minutes of exercise each and every day.
Wear that Fitness Tracker You Got for the Holidays
While the accuracy of the pedometer feature on most trackers is questionable, research shows that they are successful in motivating people to move more and increase their level of physical activity. Start by wearing your tracker to establish your steps baseline. Then gradually increase the amount by 250 or 500 steps to get to a goal of 10,000 steps per day.
Treat Yourself to Some New Exercise Equipment
If you are looking for ideas of what to use your gift cards for, consider treating yourself to a new pair of workout shoes, or some really cool workout apparel, or any other equipment that will make you excited to work out. It is amazing what a new outfit can do to re-energize your efforts to get to that spin class or Zumba workout. Have fun purchasing your new stuff and then have even more fun wearing it and testing it out!
Use Your New Workout Gear Often
If you purchased new set of weights, or a new outfit, be sure to keep up with your goal and actually use those items in the week ahead. Sometimes it helps to schedule in your workouts just as you would for an important business meeting or child’s extracurricular sport practice. By seeing the appointment on your calendar and planning ahead (pack the gym clothes the night before) will help you to stay accountable to that SMART goal you made earlier in the week.
I hope that these tips have given you some helpful insight into how you can motivate yourself to keep up with your overall health and wellness goals for 2016. It is never too late to rework previous goals into SMART goals. Check back next week, as I give some tips on how to manage healthy eating when you are out and about with your busy schedule. Till then, if you wish to schedule a free 10 minute consultation with me, please contact me.
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