You might have heard that the road to failure is paved with good intentions. The road to success, on the other hand, is paved with good planning. When you’re trying to lose weight, you can set goals that are unrealistic or vague, but if you truly want to improve your wellbeing as well as your waistline, a little rewriting may be in order.
There are three common errors when it comes to setting goals. The first is allowing your bad habits to take precedence, and using vague language to do so. For example, saying ‘I will try to be a bit better this week’ is a barrier to your success as the word ‘try’ implies that if anything comes up, the old habits have permission to take over, leading to a big list of excuses. Why not revise this goal with specific tasks and goals? Tell yourself ‘I will remove unhealthy snacks from the house, eat a healthy and balanced dinner and clean my teeth straight afterwards so my body knows that there’s no more food coming. Then I can have a trip to the cinema.’
The second common error comes from negative language. A goal such as ‘I really should do something about my physical fitness’ is unhelpful because the word ‘should’ looms over your head like a guilt-trip, whilst you have no plan of attack to actually to achieve it. Again, specificity is the key here, so why not change it to ‘On Saturday, I will visit 3 gyms near work and choose the best one for me. I will then sign up and schedule 2 sports sessions for next week.’
The final error you might make is setting a goal that is unsustainable. ‘I would like to feel better’ is a valid goal, but you have no idea how you’re going to get there and ‘better’ is just a feeling which almost anything can come along to change in an instant. Try setting controllable factors: ‘I will sleep at least seven hours every night, eat three healthful meals each day, and practice positive affirmations about myself and my surroundings.’ Then you’ll have a higher probability of general wellness, without leaving happiness up to circumstance.
Rewrite your goals to be as specific and measurable as possible to maximise on their effectiveness. You might find a goal doesn’t work well and needs tweaking, like taking a long walk instead of one of your gym sessions. Your ability to set good goals will improve over time, and is the fastest way to align your actions to sustainable habit change and overall wellness.
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