Goal setting can look very different depending on an individual’s lifestyle, values, and definition of success. Your goals are unique to you and don’t need to look like anyone else’s.

Goal setting is the process of identifying something you want to accomplish and establishing measurable objectives and timeframes to help you achieve it. Goal setting can help you in any area of your life, from achieving financial freedom to adopting a healthy lifestyle. When you learn how to set goals in one area of your life, it becomes easier to set them in other areas.

Setting progressive goals that allow small wins helps you move on to larger achievements. These small goals lead to progress, which is the only thing you really need to feel fulfilled and happy. It’s best to make measurable progress in a reasonable time. Goals need to be realistic and take on a positive approach (i.e. what you will do, rather than what you will avoid). By making sure the goals you set are aligned with the SMART criteria (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound), you have an anchor on which to base all of your focus and decision-making.

Goal setting is vital because it helps you decide and focus on what’s really important to you. Effective goal setting also lets you measure progress, overcome procrastination, and visualize your dreams. If you don’t know what you want to accomplish, you can’t create a plan to get there. Setting goals is the vehicle that will drive you to your desired destination.

Effective goal setting is the fundamental key to success. Whether it’s improving your health, or rekindling a relationship, setting goals lets us create our future. It also helps us grow and expand, pushing ourselves to transform in ways that we never imagined. In order to feel truly fulfilled, we need to know and feel like we’re working to achieve something. Progress equals happiness, and setting goals is what gets us there. Success without fulfillment is failure.

How to achieve your goals:

• Visualize accomplishing your goals.
• Share your goals
• Keep your goals visibly.
• Regularly review your goals.

There is so much information out there and it can be hard to know where to start when embarking on a journey to feeling healthier, fitter, stronger, and more confident. My advice is to not overthink it, just do it. Simply start with creating a goal or goals. Goal setting is incredibly important, it provides a sense of direction and a target to aim for. Your goal should be unique to you and reflect something that is personally important to you. A lot of people tend to think about a specific number on the scale when they’re thinking about health goals but I encourage you not to fall into this trap, as unfortunately, this can set you up to fail. Instead, I encourage you to set more realistic and holistic (whole-person) goals that will make meaningful changes to your life, rather than assuming a number on the scales is the answer.

You can base your goals on fitness, physical health, mental wellbeing, self-esteem, and relationship with food.

If you are having difficulty in setting your goals, here are a few questions to guide you:
• Where do I want to be?
• What will success look like?
• What will my life look like if I achieve my goal?
• How do I want to feel?

One of the most important points is to start small. Break up your overall goals into smaller goals. This makes the big goal much more attainable while creating a sense of achievement by ticking off those smaller goals, along your journey.

Goals provide us with a direction, but it is the plan that actually gets us somewhere. To set a plan you need to think about how you will achieve your goals, i.e. the specific day-to-day actions that, over time, will add up to your goals. The best way to start is by looking at your current habits and behaviors, and identify what changes you could make to these that will help you move towards your goal. Start by focusing on one or two at a time and build from there.
Tip: Start with those habits and behaviors that you are most confident you can change.

Being ‘accountable’ is crucial to achieving your goals. Accountability can come in many different forms, it could be a supportive person or team or a schedule of actions or measurements to track your progress. When setting your goals, try and come up with a variety of ways to measure your progress towards these goals. So many people become way too focused on achieving a specific number on the scales
and allow this to overshadow the more relevant changes that are happening. Think more broadly than the scales, because when you stop and really consider it, what is the true meaning of this number when it fluctuates so much and is influenced by so many different things? Instead, choose measures that are meaningful reflections of your progress.

Some examples that I use are my physical measurements, my energy levels, my fitness and workout progress, and my mental and emotional wellbeing. You will also find as you make gains in one of these areas, others also fall into place. This is because all these measures of health and wellbeing are strongly connected. When I set my goals, I try to follow a holistic approach that considers the whole person, their physical, emotional, social, and spiritual wellbeing.

In the end, it’s all about you and creating goals that are achievable and realistic for you. When you set goals, no matter how small or big, and continue to execute and get them done, your confidence and discipline compound. Your confidence and discipline get stronger. You become a better version of who you really are. Achieving our goals brings a sense of accomplishment and makes us feel more positive about the future.