Goal setting for success

Now that winter's here, it's even more important to have clear goals to help keep you motivated and active during the cooler months.

It is extremely important to use realistic strategies for achieving your health and fitness (as well as other) goals. Many people try to change too many things at once, which can dramatically increase your risk of failure. Using the SMARTER acronym can help you to set goals and develop an effective plan to achieve them.

Specific – avoid the use of vague goals such as ‘I want to be fitter’. Instead, make them specific, such as ‘I want to lower my cholesterol/blood pressure’ or ‘I want to improve my Biological Age’.

Measurable – you should be able to measure and monitor your goals (partly so that you can identify progress). It may be something like ‘I want to lower my blood pressure to 120/80’ or ‘I want to be 10 kilos lighter’ or ‘I want to make my Biological Age" lower than my Chronological Age’

Achievable – Make it an attractive goal. If you don’t really want to achieve the selected goal, you are much less likely to succeed. For instance, many people fail to give up smoking because they are doing it for someone else, or they feel pressured to do it. Often, it’s only when they REALLY want to give up smoking that they can then achieve this. Therefore, try to choose a goal that would make you feel great if it happened.

Realistic – to ensure your goals are realistic, you must be capable of achieving that goal. A confidence scale can be a useful tool – Rate how confident you are ofachieving your goal, on a scale of 0-10 (0 = not confident at all, 10 = extremely confident). If you scored less than a 9 or 10, identify what can help move you towards a 9 or 10; can you get help from friends or employ an expert. Breaking your final goal down into small achievable bit sized chunks or ‘mini-goals’ that can be measured on a weekly, fortnightly, or monthly basis is very helpful. Focus your attention on these ‘mini- goals’, but always have the end-goal in the back of your mind.

Time-framed – try to be realistic when setting a timeframe. If you plan to accomplish things too quickly, you will get disheartened and probably fail. Write a realistic timescale, then write down all the barriers to achieving your goals and try to come up with a plan to overcome them.

Evaluate – It is crucial to measure, record, recognise and reward your progress. This will give you extra confidence and make you realise that all your good work is paying off.

Reset – once you have achieved your goals, set new ones based on your new internal standards. Achieving one goal can often be the catalyst for continuing and sustained success, so strike while the iron is hot!