Setting Your Health Goals
As busy people, we live hectic, stressful lifestyles. With so many things going on each day, it can be hard to set aside personal time to nurture and care for our health and wellbeing. From running around at work all day to scrambling to make dinner for the entire family, it can be difficult to meet nutrition goals. You just want to be able to sit down and have a moment to yourself with a warm, healthy dinner. Is that so much to ask?
While it can be hard to balance work and home, it is possible. In this blog, we’re going to discuss a few ways you can start setting and reaching your health goals. And no, number one is not meal planning!
1. Define Your Health Goals
Before you can create a sturdy list of goals, you need to figure out what your goals are. After all, in order to meet your goals, you have to work towards them! So go ahead and figure out what your personal goals are, and how you’re going to meet them.
For instance, if you want to start doing Pilates, google Pilates workouts on YouTube. Go to your local fitness store and buy Pilates equipment like resistance bands and small dumbbells. From there, you can advance to more intensive online classes, and then finally, you can attend a Pilates class in person. Once you’ve met one health goal, you can go on to make more, invest in those, and so on.
2. Create a Plan
Once you’ve defined your goals, it’s time to create a plan.
Let’s say you want to lose weight. Your plan of action must incorporate physical health goals such as eating healthy or exercising more. But before you start an intense workout routine or deprive yourself of nutrients, it’s important that you set realistic goals.
Think about it this way. If you were to immediately cut out all carbs or sugar in your diet to meet your wellness goals, you’d probably fail before you could even get started. When developing a plan of action, you want to make sure it’s simple enough to follow, and most of all, achievable.
3. Have Support
If you want to succeed in your health goals, it’s important that you have support from friends, family, or even an accountability partner. Ideally, you should surround yourself with people who have similar health goals, and who want to lift you up rather than put you down.
Your support system should act as a system of encouragement––ushering you onto meeting your health goals.
4. Stay Positive
Setting goals can be tough, but it can be even tougher to meet them. Make sure throughout your wellness journey you stay positive, even in the face of adversity. You have to develop a new discipline to stick to your exercise regime or whole foods diet. It’s also likely you will face disappointment on your journey, or even backtrack during times of success.
Don’t allow these things to distract you from meeting your goals. After all, failure is a great motivator. Keeping a “can do it” attitude will help brace you for the pitfalls you may come across.
5. Give Yourself Time
Many people will give up on their wellness goals because they don’t follow through correctly. For example, you may over-exert yourself too much due to a hectic workout routine, and end up giving up completely because of the effort and time it takes up in your schedule. Over time, this stress can weigh you down.
Give yourself time to rejuvenate. Exercise and physical activities can be incredibly taxing on the body. Make sure you’re eating well, getting enough proteins and healthy fats, and getting enough sleep. These are all small ways to get closer to attaining your health goals.
Instead of just expecting a magical fix, give yourself time to adjust to your new routines. By giving yourself more time to accomplish your goals, and going easy on yourself, you set yourself up for success.
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