Goal Setting for the New Year

It’s that time of year again, time to let go of the past and set our vision on a new and improved new year. Many of us create New Year goals and resolutions with the intent of improving ourselves and helping us live happier lives. While our intentions are pure, less than 8% of people stick with their New Years’ goals and resolutions. In this blog, we’re going over three simple steps to help make your resolutions a reality this year.

1- Create Your Vision

Take time to write down exactly how you want to feel, what you want to be doing, and who you want to be in the next year. Write as if you are already this person. How does this person feel? What is this person’s daily routine? Act as if you are that person and write down your healthy habits on paper. Put this paper somewhere you will see and read it often, such as your bathroom mirror, wallet, or car.

2- Keep it Positive

Negative feeds more negativity by drawing our attention to it. When writing your goals and vision, keep it positive. Don’t write, “I won’t eat chocolate before bed.” Instead, write “I will eat a piece of fruit for dessert.,” or better yet, “I will eat a Designer Protein Smoothie for dessert.” Switch it to the positive behavior you’re trying to establish, not the unhealthy behavior you’re trying to avoid. Send your attention towards the positive to create that reality.

3- Make it SMART

SMART goals stand for Specific Measurable Achievable and Relevant and Time-bound. Setting SMART goals that work toward your vision of what you want to achieve in the new year helps create a clear road map to your new reality.

To write a SMART goal, you must do the following:

• Be Your resolution should be crystal clear. You can’t write down, “lose weight.” That is not specific enough. You want to spell it out and include a time frame. For example, “I want to lose 20 lbs by March.” That paints a better picture of what exactly you want to achieve.
  • To help you write a specific resolution and goal, think of the below questions.
    • What do I want to accomplish?
    • Why is this goal important?
    • Who is involved?
    • Where is it located?

• Make it Every goal, whether it’s about weight loss or not, should be measurable. This helps us assess our completion of the goal. For example, if you want to start reading more books. You could write, “I read four days a week for 40 minutes.” Instead of, “read more.” If you start reading three days a week for 40 minutes, you know the goal is 75% complete, and you have more to work towards.
  • To help you write a specific resolution and goal, think of the below questions.
    • How many?
    • How will I know when it is completed?

• Make it The only way to grow is to push yourself outside your comfort zone. To do this, you want to set a goal that stretches you out of your comfort zone but is not so unrealistic that it likely won’t be completed. I love to think anything is possible, but you want to avoid feeling defeated if the goal is unrealistic. Goals that are 70% achievable push you out of your comfort zone and are likely to be achieved. If it were 100% achievable, it wouldn’t foster growth. Creating goals that are slightly under 100% sets you up to stretch yourself outside your comfort zone.

• Make it Make a resolution that’s connected to your values and goals and not outside influences. Take a moment to sit down and think about what matters to you. Avoid making resolutions to please others. You must have an intrinsic desire to make this goal a reality. Doing something with the motivation from external sources only motivates us temporarily. When we find a goal that we undoubtedly genuinely want for ourselves, we are more likely to achieve it.

• Make it Time-Bound. We’ve all said the phrase, “I’ll do it tomorrow.” The problem is many of us keep repeating this phrase until our goals become a distant memory. Make your goal time-bound so you can see when you complete your goal. Every goal should have a deadline, so we know where we are headed and when. Making a time-sensitive goal helps us prevent our everyday tasks or outside needs from prioritizing our resolution.

 The New Year is an exciting time, and we at Designer Wellness are here to support you! Think positive and sit down and write out those goals. You got this! When it comes to nutrition goals, we got you covered with a full line of quality products to meet your protein and dietary needs so you can stay charged, satiated and energized to tackle any goal.

By Ginger Cochran, MS, RDN, CDCES, CEP-ACSM