The New Year period is a fantastic opportunity that we can all take to reflect upon the healthy living choices we make in our daily lives and how we can make informed, positive health choices in the future to improve overall quality of life. However, I feel we can all probably think of a time that health 'resolutions' and the well-intentioned goals that we set have been unsustainable for a range of reasons. Too often we find we are unintentionally setting ourselves up for failure…
The key to making health goals achievable is to use effective tools that can help us in making our goals a reality. The creation of ISMART goals is an effective tool that you can use to develop and maintain your health goals.
The ISMART goalsetting tool is an easy, user friendly tool that only takes a few minutes. I encourage you to give it a try and see if this helps with defining and maintaining your health goals. You could choose to write your goal down in your journal or on your smartphone, so that you can always have it handy to refer to and track.
This ISMART tool is a simple acronym for a sequence of steps, that goes as follows...
Inspiring = Being able to connect with your goal in a way that deeply drives your motivation and inspires you to succeed is important .
Ask yourself, how does my goal relate to me on a human, health, family, spiritual or social level?
Specific = Make your goal crystal clear. One to two sentences at a maximum should be all that is needed to define your goal.
For example, "I want to maintain my essential daily nutrient levels whilst managing my weight for the month"
Manageable = Too often the biggest barrier we face is incorporating changes to our incredibly busy daily lives. Think of a small change you can put into place each day to keep you on track, such as putting in a reminder in your phone to have a healthy collagen drink each morning.
Achievable = One way to de-rail goalsetting is feeling you are not achieving success along your goal journey. Make your goals small to start, then when you achieve this goal celebrate this awesome achievement and the go on to create new health goals!
Relevant = Make goals that reflect what is going to work for you and your lifestyle. This is all about you! Making goals relevant is key to sustaining momentum, and in time your goal will become routine.
Time-based = Give your goal a timeframe that works well into daily routine and that you can track over time (also a good reason to record goals).
For example, “Every day this week I am going to take a healthy collagen drink and track how I feel in my journal/phone using a checklist or note system”. At the end of the month reflect on how this new goal has worked for you and either continue or make changes to best suit your needs.
Good luck on your healthy goal setting journey!
Read more information about healthy living and the benefits of collagen here.
Written by Liz Golsby, Digital Marketing Manager, Nutraviva Ba MTeach DipHSc.
