S.M.A.R.T Goals

As an eductor I am always working to set goals for improvement, monitorng to see how I am progressing toward that goal, and constantly analyzing my data. If I reach my goal, I set another one and move on. If I am mot progressing the way I should, I analyze the data, make changes and keep moving toward that goal. That is what we do in education. It is engrained in me to do this. Several years back we started hearing the term S.M.A.R.T goals. This little acronym was developed to help educators know how to set goals that could be reached and it is used all the time in everything. So why not in fitness and health improvement?

Well you may be asking what in the world does this have to do with fitness and health. Simple. S.M.A.R.T goals can be used for anything and only just recently have I started applying this to my fitness and health goals. It has made all the differnce in the world. What is a S.M.A.R.T.goal? Easy, it is a goal that is
S-specific, M-measurable. A- attainable, R-realistic, T-timely.

Often times when people start trying to improve their health they establish goals that sound something like this " I want to lose weight" or "I want to be healthy." Neither of these are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, or timely  goals. They are just too generic to be helpful.

A better goal might be " I would like to lose ten pounds over the next 4 weeks"  It meets all the requirements of a good goal... specific, measuable, attainable, realistic, and timely.  Anything over ten pound takes too long to get to it and people get frustrated trying to lose 5o pounds. Small goals lead to huge victories. You have to "eat the elephant one bite at the time or else you will get choked." It is the same way with goals. Too many or too large or open ended goals keep you frustrated.  That is why so many people have dropped their New Years Resolutions by February every year.

I usually don't even set monthly goals, I like weekly goals to change it up. Some weeks I look at weight, some times I look at habits like eating, journaling, or exercising and set a goal for that instead of always focusing on my weight. You don't want to become obssessive about that (as many women can, me included). Shake it up a bit set a S.M.A.R.T Goal and see what happens, I think you will like it and find more success in the end.