BE SMART!

Be SMART in 2023! You can start off 2023 with a strong beginning and steady progress through the entire year, meeting goal after goal, by following a the following guru advise about setting goals and making them a reality!

• People who write down their goals are 50% more likely to achieve their goals compared with people who do not write down their goals. All motivational ‘gurus’ promote writing down goals and carrying the goals with you.

• Yet less than 3% of people put their goals on paper. Setting a goal and writing it down is your first step towards making the invisible goal, visible. Once visible, you are one step closer to making it a reality!

• Over 90% of New Year’s resolutions fail by January 15 and therefore we have a National Ditch New Year’s Resolution Day (January 17). But that does not need to be you. You do not need to fall into the ditch. Keep reading!

• Sharing your goals with someone you can be accountable to will increase the chances even more you will achieve your goal. Goals can be fluid and may, in the end, be very different than the original intent. If you are carrying your goals with you, as the new ideas come into your mind, you can write them down right away so they will not get lost.

• Achieving your goals will usually require sacrificing something else. Nothing is free in this life. What are you willing to do to have your best health? Are you willing to do whatever it takes, including sacrificing a habit/food/drink, etc., to achiever your best health?

The old saying goes: “life is about the journey.” As you think about your health goals, consider the journey you will take to achieve those goals. How will you schedule your health journey into your everyday life to reach your goal? If you map out your journey, you will have a better chance of reaching your destination.

In business we call this process a “critical pathway” for achieving our business goals. On this critical pathway we have all the known necessary steps needed to achieve the goal in a timely fashion. Dates are set for each step according to when each phase needs to be achieved to avoid project delays. Individuals assigned to a step are accountable to the whole group for successful completion and achievement of that step and the larger project or goal.

You can use this same concept with your health goals. You can break down your ultimate goal into smaller journey goals, and you can track your progress along the way. When a task is completed you can reward yourself. This could be something as simple as putting a gold star of successful achievement beside the smaller goals as they are reached day by day. You may think this sounds a bit childish, but I can assure you it works; it is motivational. As you see the gold stars adding up you become more and more motivated to continue toward the goal whether you

are 4 or 94 years old. After a set number of stars (you set the number) you can receive a larger reward; something that you enjoy and does not involve food or drink!

Statistics from http://www.goalband.co.uk/goal-achievement-facts.html

Writing down goals and mapping out a plan for the successful achievement of those goals can go a long way toward making your goals a reality! The adage is true, “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Not writing down your goals and making a plan to achieve those goals, is like setting out for a destination without any tools or maps to guide you in your journey. Without a mapped out plan you do not know how to reach your destination and you will simply depend on luck to get

you there. How has that worked out so far?

Setting SMART Goals

To help you get started on your health journey, consider five crucial aspects to help you in your planning. SMART is an acronym that contains the five crucial aspects as outlined below:

Specific: Your goal should be well defined as to what you specifically want to accomplish.

Here are some examples: