How to Set Intentional & Attainable Goals in 2023

The new year always brings talk of “new years resolutions,” giving you a slew of things you should change or implement in your life in the new year. While we promote practicing healthy habits year round, we wanted to give you some practical advice for setting intentional and attainable goals this year. Our goal is to see you reach your goals! So, with that in mind, here are some tips for your goal setting this new year.

 

The goal(s) you set this year should be impactful to YOU. They should be goals that are important to YOU that will improve YOUR life. This is not the place to look externally and let others influence your goal making. One tip is to focus on setting goals that you can achieve on your own efforts, rather than relying on others to do it for you. 

 

A lot of the time when people make goals to “eat healthier” and “workout more” they never really happen because there are no metrics to keep track of. You want to make sure your goals are quantitative, or measurable. For example, your goal could be to eat 3 balanced meals each day, make sure you have someting green in each meal, cook your own dinner 4/7 days of the week, or eliminate highly processed foods from your diet.

Similarly, your fitness goal could look something like this: be active 3 days a week, go to a workout class once a week, pick up a new active hobby, or sign up for a workout plan. These are all just suggestions and examples for you to see how you can make your goals more specific so that they are easier to work towards.

Work Them Into Your Current Lifestyle/Schedule

Drastically shifting around your schedule or creating a completely new one is usually unrealistic. Look for ways you can implement your new goals into your current schedule. For example, if you work crazy hours or have kids, giving yourself a goal of working out for 1hr+ every day might be unattainable. Look for pockets in your schedule that you might normally use for downtime and see if you can squeeze in a quick 20-30 minute workout. Or, see if you can wake up 30 minutes earlier to get a little sweat in before work. Achieving goals doesn’t require a huge life change. It is usually small daily habits that build over time.

Don’t Over Do It

As previously stated, working towards your goals doesn’t have to be a drastic change. Make your goals realistic to you and your lifestyle. For example, if you are not a runner, it’s not very realistic to give yourelf the goal of running 3 miles every day. Start smaller and work your way up, maybe start out walking and work your way up to jogging, then focus on the distance as you build endurance. Basically this: you don’t have to go super strong right off the bat. Doing this usually results in quick burnout and eventually abandonment of the goal entirely.

 

 

The beginning of the year can sometimes feel quite daunting with so many health tips and suggestions from everyone on how you can improve your life. Take a deep breath and find 2-5 realistic goals that you can begin working towards now. Sit down and break them up into bite size actions that you can implement into your every day life. If you need more help setting or working towards your goals, contact us! We have plenty of nutrition and fitness resources that are sure to help it all seem less intimidating!