Whatever your health and wellness goals may be, here are 7 tips to help you set your goals and more importantly, make them stick.

1 Know Your ‘Why’ –

This is the first and most important step of all. Your ‘why’ is YOUR personal reason for wanting to reach your health and wellness goals. It is the driving force to get you out of bed in a morning and push you on. When you first start setting your health and wellness goals you will have lots of motivation and determination. Unfortunately that will fizzle out, and without your ‘why’, you will struggle and probably just give up. So make your ‘why’ personal, make it mean something. You are doing this for you, your happiness, your health, both physical and mental. You deserve to be your best you. No comparing, no giving up, your journey is just that, YOUR journey. It’s all about progress, not perfection, take a breath, take a rest, but continue on your journey.

2 Make Things Easy for Yourself –

When setting new health and wellness goals you need to make them as easy as possible. Remove any resistance that might hinder you. So, if you want to workout in the morning, get your workout clothes and trainers ready and on view the night before. If you want to stop snoozing your alarm, try putting your alarm clock at the other side of the room. If you want to start eating healthier at work or after work, prep something healthy ahead of time. So that when you are on last minute, healthy is your easy option.

3 Be Aware of Your Own Excuses –

We are actually really good at coming up with excuses. Why we can’t or didn’t do something, lack of time or lack of money are the most commonly used. If you are aware of your own excuses before you start and have answers to why you can still achieve them, you will be able to argue your own excuses. Many health and wellness goals can be very cheap, if not free. You don’t need a fancy gym membership, new workout clothes, a subscription to a meal prep service or to join a meditation class. Your breath is free, a walk outside is free, a youtube workout is free, a guided meditation is free, books from the library are free. And as far as time goes, if your ‘why’ is personal, heartfelt and your catapult to change, to be the best you, you CAN carve out SOME time. Even if it’s just 5 mins to meditate, 10 mins to walk outside, 20 mins to workout, time to read 2 pages of a book or drink an extra glass of water. Maybe try looking at your phone usage time and see if you are willing to exchange some of that scroll time to work on yourself!

4 Keep Your Goals Realistic –

Even if your end goal might be something big, make sure you set smaller, realistic goals along the way. Each time you reach one of those little goals, your confidence will grow and you’ll get a fresh dose of motivation to make you want to reach the next one.

5 Celebrate the Little Wins –

Every time you do reach one of those mini goals, try not to just move on to the next straight away. Be your own cheerleader, give yourself a huge pat on the back, and tell yourself just how bloody amazing you are for achieving your goal.

6 Be Consistent –

Consistency is key! That is why it’s so important to set those smaller goal steps. If your goal is to drink 2 litres of water every day, you may start off well, ticking off that habit tracker, feeling great. Then after a while you may struggle, it’s not as fun as it once was, something gets in the way, you need the loo all the time, so then you just stop. The goal was too big, you were riding on the back of motivation (which doesn’t last) so it was an all or nothing mentality. However, if your goal was just 1 glass of water, it’s so much more achievable. And 1 glass of water everyday for the rest of your life is more beneficial than a few weeks or a few months of 2 litres of water, then nothing until the next time you decide to give it a try.

7 Put Them as an Appointment in Your Diary –

Our diaries/calenders are filled with things for us to do, go to work at such a time, drop the kids off at such a time, make dinner at such a time, meet a friend at such a time. We schedule all our important things into our day so they get done. So schedule in your health and wellness goals. If you started not doing the things you had scheduled in for the day, like going to work, picking the kids up and meeting friends, you would be letting a lot of people down. Don’t let yourself down! Your health matters, your wellness matters, your goals matter….YOU matter!

Hope you find these helpful, feel free to share your goals below.