Wellness goals help keep you motivated to make healthy choices; even when you may really want to make a different (less healthy) choice. Goals serve as anchor points, especially when the path becomes challenging. Eyes on the prize, as they say.
But it’s also true that the road to any significant goal has its share of ups and downs, and that prize, that goal, can feel completely out of reach at times. That is, sometimes even having your anchor point doesn’t feel like enough to keep you heading in the desired direction. In fact, sometimes goals become frustrating enough that you reach a point when you just want to scrap the whole thing.
One critical aspect of staying on track when you feel a dip in confidence or like you may have taken on more than you can handle is to set up ways to track your progress.
A meaningful goal takes time and having ways to track progress over the course of your journey will serve to keep you motivated and confident in your ability to achieve the big dream you’ve set for yourself.
Small Steps, Over Time, Cover a Long Distance
One common and useful piece of advice when starting any goal journey is to break your goal into smaller steps. This is always a good place to start. Get from one small step to the next, and celebrate each bit of forward movement.
There is, however, a pitfall in using this as your only means of staying on the path to your goal and it is this: What happens when you backslide or when you plateau for a long time without making forward progress?
Let’s take the common goal of dropping weight. Say you want to drop 20 pounds, and you’re going to celebrate every time you lose 2 pounds. You find that you are able to readily drop the first 8 pounds with some dedicated attention to changes in your nutrition and movement habits.
You keep with your new habits, but then the weight stops coming down. Maybe you even gain back a pound or two. What now?
Certainly, this could lead to all sorts of frustration. Perhaps some negative thoughts start rushing in. Your confidence starts to falter. You consider abandoning your goal.
Before that happens, here are a few things to consider.
Take the Long View
You know that progress is not linear. If we stick with this weight loss goal example, for instance, it is all but guaranteed that you will not steadily lose weight day in, day out, week in, week out at the same rate until you reach your goal. You will plateau. You may probably gain some weight back.
Your weight will also shift due to factors that have nothing to do with what you’re eating or how much you’re working out. This is especially true for women who are menstruating: weight fluctuates depending on where you are in your cycle. And everyone’s weight will change due to levels of hydration.
Because of all of these variables, it’s important to look at the long view: What does your progress look like over a long period of time? It’s easy to get caught up in the minutiae of the moment and to become impatient.
Big goals take time and when those goals are to improve your wellness, all actions trending in the direction of better health is worth celebrating. So while the needle on the scale may not be moving, your better eating and movement habits are big wins! More on this next.
Choose Many Data Points for Tracking Progress
It is very easy to get fixated on one marker to track progress, without recognizing all of the other ways you may be or could be improving.
Let’s say you’re on this weight loss journey but the scale isn’t budging. You’re in that plateau period. Maybe it’s time to focus your efforts in some other areas that will ultimately help this journey.
In the realm of weight loss, there are also often accompanying feelings of self-judgment around what or how much you’re eating. There might be self-esteem issues around body image. This can lead to stress and frustration that isn’t helping you in your journey.
So, perhaps it’s time to work on those roadblocks. Now, instead of only looking at the scale, you can look to the ways that you’re improving your mindset or feelings about yourself.
Or, maybe your interest in losing weight has ushered in a newfound joy around hiking or running. Celebrate the milestones you’ve achieved there. Maybe you’re getting to the gym regularly now or you’ve cut out soda.
Even if these changes aren’t resulting in your first goal, of dropping pounds, you can celebrate the fact that these new habits are contributing to your wellness. These new healthier habits may also likely be helping you feel better, mentally and physically. Keep track of those more subjective improvements, too.
Keeping a daily or weekly diary noting as many changes as you can think of is a great practice. When you’re not making progress in one area, take note of where you’re making progress somewhere else. And again, all progress is worthy of celebration.
Reassess Your Goal: What Do You Really Want?
A final note about goals: periodically check in with yourself to make sure that the goal you’ve set for yourself is really the goal that’s meaningful to you. Is this a goal you truly care about?
It is A-OK to change your mind and readjust your goal over time. Returning one last time to this weight loss goal: say you lose 12 pounds and you realize that you move well, you’ve settled into healthy eating habits, and you’ve established a wonderful gym and hiking routine.
Also, you take note of the fact that perhaps your body type is happier the size and shape it is now than it would be if you kept trying to lose more weight. This is all to say, whatever your goal may have originally, it’s important to realize that the end goal may look different than you first envisioned, and that’s a success, too.
Keeping a bigger picture outlook about goals and finding many ways to assess progress will help you keep moving forward. It will also make the journey that much more enjoyable. And this can give you a better appreciation for the many ways one goal can have many benefits in your life.
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