Why is it that most of us don’t see our health and wellness dreams fulfilled? Too often we sell ourselves short by simply doing what we’ve always done. As a result we always get what we’ve always gotten in the past. We all want to see our dreams fulfilled, but unfortunately we stop short of taking action on those dreams. The truth is our dreams don’t work unless we do!
Goal setting is a powerful process for taking baby steps to our dreams. They are key to shaping our ideal future, and for motivating ourselves to turn our vision of the future into reality. The practice of setting goals is used by top-level athletes, successful business people and leaders in all fields. They give us long term vision and short term motivation. They focus our knowledge and help us organize our time and our resources so that we can make the very most of our lives.
- Write your health goals down: What does not get written down does not get done. This crystallizes our goals and gives them more force.
- Set priorities: When we have several goals, prioritize them. This helps us avoid feeling overwhelmed by too many goals, and helps to direct our attention to the most important ones.
- State each goal as a positive statement: Express your goals positively. “I want lower my body fat so that I can feel better and more energetic” is a much better goal than “I’ve got to lose all this weight somehow.”
- Set realistic goals: When we set goals that are not realistic, or too high, we may not anticipate the skill needed. This in turn may cause us to want to give up, so we must make sure our goals are reasonable. Make sure to keep the goals small and achievable. If a goal is too large, then it can seem that we are not making progress towards it. Keeping goals small and incremental gives more opportunities for reward. We should take care to set goals that are manageable. There is nothing more dispiriting than failing to achieve a personal goal for reasons beyond our control.
- Be precise: Set a precise goal, putting in dates and times so that you can measure achievement. If we do this, we will know exactly when we have achieved the goal, and can take complete satisfaction from having accomplished it.
It’s time for us to pull out our biggest dreams and make a decision to go for it with all we’ve got! What do we have to lose? It amazes me the miraculous transformation that happens in our lives when we are willing to dream.
Let’s be thinking about some health and wellness dreams for the future, and in the next blog we will look at the plan to see these come to life. It’s all in a state of mind. Remember, to change your life you must change your mind!
FIT FOREVER Tom Hopkins 