I hope you had a lovely snuggly good-gifty tasty-meals Christmas weekends. Does anyone else feel like it’s TOO SOON to now have New Year’s Day upon us? That only gives us one week to take down alllllllll the holiday decorations and get my shyou-know-what together before it’s 2018. I refuse to start the new year with 2017’s leftovers.
A major component of what I do in my job role as a dietitian is help patients set health and wellness goals. Consider this post a tune-up on how we tend to set our goals, and how we SHOULD be setting our goals.
An acronym that I (and all my friendly fellow RDs use) is SMART.
S: specific
M: measurable
A: attainable
R: relevant
T: timely
This acronym’s components can help guide us to making the best constructed goal possible. Let’s check it out.
These would be examples of poor goals:
I want to be healthier
I want to lose weight
I want to eat a better diet.
Not that the sentiment behind the goals is bad, but they’re just way too vague. Good luck tackling them, and good luck knowing when you’ve reached success. Applying the SMART model would look like:
S (specific): “I want to lose ten pounds.”
M (measurable): “I will buy a home scale to use every Monday morning after I shower.” If you never weigh yourself, how are you going to know if you are moving towards meeting your goal? Resist the urge to be spontaneous with measuring- pick a timeframe and do your best to not stray.
A (attainable): Ten pounds is likely a lot more realistic than say 30 pounds. It’s ok to revisit a goal throughout the year, so let’s set up this goal to be non-intimidating.
R (relevant): “Losing weight would help me fit in my clothes better. It could also help lower my cholesterol which my doctor told me was creeping up.” It has to be something that you care about, right? What drives you to strive toward this goal?
T (timely): “I want to accomplish this by June 30th.” Put a time frame parameter to your goal. If it’s left open ended, you may find yourself more likely to blow off all the actions that lead up to the goal.
Making sense? Let’s try another one.
S (specific): “I want to eat at least one serving of fruit AND veggie per day.”
M (measurable): What to you is a serving? I often counsel patients to not really even worry about servings with veggies- a slice of a tomato on a sandwich can count! Some low sodium crunchy pickle spears can count! If you add some finely diced carrots to your chili, it counts! Try keeping a tally sheet or notes page on your phone to jot down the fruit and veggie that you did manage to get in.
A (attainable): With this goal, you’re going to have to be ok with frozen, and even maybe canned options. If the goal were to have fresh or raw, well, January is not exactly the time of year to be rocking fresh produce- at least in Minnesota where I am. Aiming on the low side of intake can be helpful too- maybe there are days where you get in a few different veggies and fruits- that’s awesome! It’s ok to aim realistic and exceed that goal. Better that then to aim high and fall short.
R (relevant): “Increasing my veggies and fruits would help give me more dietary fiber, which might help me make better food choicse all throughout the day.”
T (timely): “I want to have this goal turn into a habit within 30 days.” The actions we do, day in day out, eventually lead to a habit. Habits are maintainable. Remember that when you hit road blocks- maybe some days it’s just a few handfuls of spinach tossed into your turkey wrap, and maybe other days it’s a big beautiful salad. The key is that no matter how much or how little you still got in your veggie.
Set yourself up for success in 2018. And of course, have a happy New Year!
