Hello All,
Its Wellness Wednesday once again and we are going o continue our discussion on making the most of your wellness journey. So last week week I left you with the challenge to figure out where you are at in your wellness journey and where you are at in the process of making changes. This week the topic is how to start to make changes and how to make goals for those changes.
We make fitness goals and wellness goals that are sometimes a little unreasonable. What do I mean by this? Here is an example, I will lose 20 pounds this month. This is not reasonable and is likely setting yourself up for failure. Why? Healthy weight loss is typically 1-2 pounds a week. We also make goals that are not very specific, such as I am going to drink more water.
When we set goals an easy way to remember how to make a SMART goal is to use the letters of SMART.
SPECIFIC- When setting a goal, you should be specific, how many pounds, how much more water, what calorie goal, you get the point,
MEASUREABLE- This goes with specific goals often, because in being specific we are putting a form of measurement into the goal right?
ATTAINABLE- Can you actually do this? Increase from 1 bottle of water a day to 6 bottles a day, while 6 bottles of water is a good goal, do you think you make achieve that goal or should you start smaller first?
REALISTIC- Is this a goal you can realistically achieve or are you more likely to fail horribly at it?
TIMLEY- Is there a time associated with your goal? By when? When will you check and see if you have achieved this goal and are ready to start a new one.
So, now that we have an idea of what it means to have SMART goal, lets practice some. Goal 1 is to lose weight, so for a weightless goal lets say I will lose 10 pounds by September 1st. Is this specific? Yes! Measurable? Yes! Attainable? Yes! Realistic? Yes! Timely? Yes! This may be a SMART goal for me, but for someone else this might be too much, maybe they would change the number to 5 pounds. Goal 2 is to increase water intake. I will add 1 bottle of water to what I am currently drinking for the next week. Is this specific? Yes! Measurable? Yes! Attainable? Yes! Realistic? Yes! Timely? Yes!
So now, its your turn, start making your goals! Post them here as comments if you want help making them SMART.
Fitness and Faith 