5 Tips for Setting Successful Health Goals for 2020

It’s that time of year when we start to think about setting new year’s resolutions, look ahead to the next year and start to make some new goals for the coming months. 

This year, as you set out to evaluate what you want to change, achieve or improve in 2020, keep these five points in mind to help you reach success:

Find a motivator

Don’t set goals based on what you think you should do, or what goals you think you should have (I should be a runner, I should be vegetarian), but rather set goals that are based on an intrinsic motivation that you can uphold and use to motivate you forward.

Find something that is important to you that is enough to motivate you to make a change and make something happen.

Doing it for someone else or relying on the motivation to come from someone else isn’t going to lead you to consistent success. 

Perhaps, instead, you want to lost weight to fit into your wedding dress in a few months, or you signed up for a race and are going to finish. 

Find your motivator and then put it to work to help you achieve our goal!

Make it Reasonable

Don’t set a goal that is nearly impossible to achieve and that you are setting up for failure from the outset.

Losing weight for example, to do healthfully and to be able to maintain, doesn’t happen within a few weeks, and it’s not reasonable to try to lose more than one to two pounds per week. 

Instead, set a goal that is reasonable (but still challenging for you to achieve). 

And if you don’t make it, don’t beat yourself up: things change, life happens, and while you shouldn’t be just making up excuses for why you weren’t able to reach your goal, truly evaluate the reasons and decide your next course of action.  

Maybe you need to just set a new date for when you will achieve it by, or maybe you need to modify your goal. 

Make it Measurable

It's no fun having a goal that you can't tell when you've reached.

It's important to make are that the goal you set you have a way of measuring your success.

Instead of saying you want to lose weight, specify how much you want to lose and figure out how you will measure that so you can tell when you have achieved your goal.

Will you use the scale and measure in pounds?

Use your clothes and measure by when you can fit into your jeans?

Maybe you will measure in inches. 

Whatever it is, be consistent and make it a clear point you have to reach to know when you have achieved your goal. 

Have an “I will” Attitude

Don't set your goal as something you are going to do: set it as something you will do, with a by when deadline.

For example, instead of saying I am going to lose weight in 2020, instead, say I will be 20 pounds lighter by April 1 2020.

The  “I will” attitude lets you visualize it in your head: how you will feel, what it will look like, you being in that position, and doesn't just paint it as a distant picture like the garage you are going to clean out. 

Plus it boosts your confidence and puts you in the right mindset for success!

Tell Someone About Your Goal

There's nothing to hold you accountable like having someone else hold you accountable.

Tell someone you trust and respect about your goal, so that they can ask you about it and check in with you regularly to keep you on track.

Keeping your goals to yourself doesn't allow you the optimum chance for success because sometimes it's easy to make up excuses for ourselves, no matter how much willpower we have!