Goal Setting: 5 Easy Tips to Proper Goal Setting
With the New Year approaching, I wanted to write an article about how to properly set a goal for yourself. Goal setting is a critical part of making a change in your life. Whether it’s a New Year’s Resolution, or a goal your setting for yourself in April, these 5 tips still apply.
Do you make a resolution each New Year? Do you end up following through and staying committed to the changes you want to make? Most Americans will make some type of New Year’s Resolution. The majority of these resolutions will based around health, fitness, diet, wellness, and self-improvement. However, most people either forget about their resolution or discontinue it within the first month of the New Year.
These 5 steps will help you stay committed to your New Year’s Resolution and allow you to achieve the outcome you desire.
- Make you resolution SMART: Everyone can think of an area they could improve upon. Perhaps you want to improve your diet. Maybe you want to lose 5-10 pounds. Maybe you want to read more books this upcoming year. Whatever your goal is, be sure and make it a SMART goal. It should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. Keeping these principles in mind when making your resolution will help you better track your goal and allow you to identify your progress toward achieving it. For more information on how to write SMART goals, click here.
- Write Down Your Plan: Developing a plan toward achieving your goal is crucial. In this plan, it is important to do the following things.
- Identify barriers toward achieving your goals
- Have a plan to overcome these barriers
- Make a timeline of how you will achieve your goal
- Think of several short term milestones that will help you achieve your long term goal
- Have a Partner: Choose someone close to you to help hold you accountable toward achieving your goal. It definitely helps if you and that person share the same goal and have similar lifestyle choices. Regardless, having a close friend, family member, or partner to keep you in check and on task with your progress is very important. Be sure this person understands how important your goal is to you and encourage them to help reinforce behaviors that will help you achieve it
- Set Reminders: Don’t be one of the people who forgets about their New Year’s Resolution by mid-January. Set a monthly reminder in your phone for yourself to re-visit your goal and your progress toward achieving it. Sometimes life gets busy and little we can easily get off-track. Having simple alerts and reminders will help you stay focused on the tasks you need to do to get to where you want to be.
- Keep a Journal: Tracking your progress toward your goal is the best way to evaluate yourself and hold yourself accountable. Even if you steer away from your original plan, tracking your progress can help you revise your plan in a way that will still achieve the desired outcome. Keep a daily, weekly, or monthly journal indicating what you have completed toward achieving your goal. In the journal, be sure to also identify reasons of why you may have not made specific progress. This act of self-reflection is important not only for the current goal, but also any future goals you intend to create. The act of self-reflection helps us learn from our mistakes, figure out what is working, and figure out what areas we need to work on.
PhysioStrength Physical Therapy and Sports Performance is here to help you with achiveing your goals. Come in for a FREE consultation today and learn how we can help you feel better, move better, and live better.
Please don’t hesitate to contact us and see how we can help you today!
PhysioStrength Physical Therapy
2909 S. 12th St. Tacoma, WA, 98405
Phone: (253)-722-9788
Fax: (253)-778-6992
cnaccarato@physiostrength.com