Well it’s that time of the year again here at Saratoga Health and Wellness. The time of year where everyone is prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice and buckle down with a few New Year’s resolutions focused on fitness and health. This year, rather than set a vague general resolution like “this year I’m going to lose weight,” we’d recommend setting a few SMART goals. The acronym SMART stands for:
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Timely
Setting SMART goals will create the road map to guide you to your ultimate outcome. So what are SMART goals and how do you set them leading into the new year?
1. Make your goal specific. This is actually why we prefer the term “goals” to resolution. A resolution implies you are deciding something; a goal implies a specific action you want to take.
Obviously as it stands right now, “get healthy” is not very specific. There are many ways to get healthy from stopping smoking, to eating more produce, to getting more exercise. But even saying something like “eating more fruits and veggies” or “exercising more” isn’t specific enough. To really be SMART about it, you need to define exactly what you want to do.
Specific Goal: Exercise at least 30 minutes a day, at least 3 days a week, specifically Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 5 pm.
2. Make the goal measurable. How are you going to track your progress? Making it concrete will not only help you stay on track, but it can also give you motivation along the way as you reach mini milestones.
The specific goal above is clearly measurable. Success can be measured based on how often you exercise each week. But you don’t even have to be that prescriptive. The examples below are both specific and measurable:
Hike Prospect Mountain by June 1st, 2013
Build up to being able to run for an hour
Eat at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day
3. Make sure the goal is attainable. Now I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t set the bar high or shoot for the stars. But sometimes when we set grand goals that we really aren’t in a place to achieve, we’re actually setting ourselves up for failure and discouragement. I think this is why so many people give up on their resolutions after a few months. On January 1st they may be fired up to change and proudly declare: “I’m going to the gym every day!” only to find that life gets in the way and doing that is pretty near impossible. Instead, it’s much better to start small. Or to create intermediate goals and celebrate small victories along the way.
Attainable Goal: I will not add cream to my coffee for the month of January (this is something I can handle but may certainly challenge me)
4. Make the goal realistic. If you aren’t a runner (or just hate running), running a marathon probably is not a realistic goal for you at the moment. That doesn’t mean you can never do one, but if you want to make sure that your goal is something you can achieve in the next year, you have to look at where you are now, and start from there. Similarly, it has to be a goal you’re willing to put in the work for. For example, committing to doing yoga 5+ days a week is not a realistic goal for me, but committing to taking my multi-vitamin every morning, is something I can handle but will still challenge me.
Realistic Goal: “I will try my best to limit desserts, aiming to eat no more than 3 desserts per week.” (vs. vowing to never eat dessert again — which isn’t realistic for me, anyway).
5. Set a time-frame. This is probably one of the most important pieces. Without any sort of deadline, we don’t have any real motivation to make a change. Telling yourself you’re going to start exercising or you’re going to build up to run for an hour isn’t enough. When do you want to achieve this by? Next year? In two months? Having a goal will keep you motivated, and will also help you keep track of your progress.
Timely Goal: Starting next week, I am going to do some form of cardio for at least 30 minutes, at least 3 days each week. I will to commit to this schedule for the next 3 months.
Setting SMART goals doesn’t mean you’ll never experience failure or setbacks. But it does give you something concrete to work toward and can increase your chances of being successful in the upcoming year.