SMART Goals

With the Back to Wellness Challenge coming up, let's make some SMART goals! It's so common to make broad, ultra-challenging goals willy nilly. This just sets you up to give up. Are we giving up? No way!

So, make yourself some SMART goals:

Specific
Do you want to get well? Do you want to be fit? Do you want to eat healthier? What does that mean? Don't leave ambiguity in your goal, and be as specific as possible. You want to walk two miles three times per week for one month. You want to get to bed by 10:30 pm every day this week. You want to cut but one packaged item per day out of your diet. You want to drink three 32 ounce bottles of water every day. Know exactly what your goals are so you can hit them!

Measurable
Going along with being specific, you have to know when you meet your goals! So, you need to be able to measure them! They can be measured by time, distance, frequency, whatever. If you can't measure your goals, you can either fudge them or get stuck feeling like you're not doing enough.

Attainable
I WANT TO LOSE 10 POUNDS PER WEEK! No. Don't do that. If you're goal is not attainable in the time you have given yourself, you are setting yourself up for failure. If you fail on your first goal, are you really going to be gung-ho to make a second one? Probably not. Know yourself and what you can achieve. Make your goals challenging, but do-able. Not sure what that is? Your wellness coach will be happy to help!

Relevant
If your goals aren't relevant to your life, there's no reason for you to really try to achieve them. Make it something to fight for! Make a goal to run one mile in nine minutes so you can keep up with your track athlete child. Take the soda out of your life, because you know it makes you feel like crap. Get eight hours of sleep per night, because you are sick of feeling groggy in the morning. Don't make a goal you don't care about.

Time Sensitive
Give yourself a deadline! You want to lose five pounds for a wedding in a month? Awesome! You want to be added sugar free six days out of the week consistently? Give yourself three weeks to make it happen. Is your goal to meal plan and prep each weekend? Get it done for two months to make it a habit.