Goals – The SMART way

LIFESTYLE CHANGE GOALS THE SMART WAY

Smart goals . How do I do it?

I choose to live by choice, not by chance; to make changes, not excuses; to be motivated, not manipulated; to be useful, not used; to excel, not compete. I choose self esteem, not self pity. I choose to listen to my inner voice, not the random opinions of others. I choose to be ME.

I say again I CHOOSE.

First set your lifestyle change goal….. But – here is the catch.  The lifestyle change goal  has to be something you can feel you can do, something you can see and feel, and something you feel rewarded by.

Visualize what you want to feel like in 1 year, six months, 2 months from now…

Your lifestyle goal should be:

Solid

A goal that you can see and feel within yourself. The S stands for the WHAT, the WHY, and the HOW. What do you want to look like? What do you want to feel? Why do you want to feel better? How can you get there? The answers may not come to immediately

Meaningful

Well managed – you must be able to see results along the way, so divide the day, week, month, year into viewable chunks that you can see. There are easy methods to measure where you are – and this make the journey so much more fun. You feel motivated to go on.

Active

An action plan that you can do. You must be able to do what you set out to do – and achieve your goal – not only for the first week but throughout the journey and with a time plan to help it gets even better. The fun thing is that you will learn a lot of new skills along the way, and these skills will help you get to your goal. You will also discover some new activities, foods or techniques that don’t suit you – so you can readjust along the way. For instance – not everyone takes to rumba, jogging or Ratatouille – This program is designed to challenge you so some days you will love others you will hate the key is to stick through and only make minor adjustments so you will be able to keep up.

Reward

Results along the way. In order to get there you need to feel rewarded that you are on the right path – and to do that you can set mini targets that you can reach each day, week, month and year. And – by reaching these mini goals you reward yourself with an imaginary gold star (or that hand cream  you wanted ?) . These checks along the way makes you feel that you have reached yet another level on your road to wellness, and in themselves they represent huge outcomes of success. DO NOT REWARD YOURSELF WITH FOOD, You are not a dog this has physical and emotional consequences.

Time

…and time alone will tell that you are on your way – and therefore you need to give yourself deadlines, and goals you can and will measure. To give yourself time boundaries you set yourself up to ‘rules’ that you yourself are accountable for. No-one will smack you if you didn’t manage, but you will not feel too good about it. So – time boundaries allows you to adjust as need be, and measure success when the goals have been met. Without linking time to these goals they tend to float away.

Happy goal setting.

Warrior Chantell