Setting goals is essential when it comes to health and well-being because it is an effective way to increase motivation and help you create the changes you want in your life. Goal setting helps to focus your attention on the things most important to you and helps to create a vision of how you would like your life to be. When you set goals, it often increases the amount of time and effort you spend on an activity, creating effective strategies to help achieve the goal. A long-term goal is a goal you wish to accomplish in the future. Long-term goals often take more time, planning, and smaller steps to help reach the end goal. A few examples of long-term goals are, “I would like to lose 50 pounds” or “I want to adopt a healthy lifestyle.”
Follow these tips to help set your long-term goals:
- Set goals that matter to you. The easiest way to stay motivated and achieve your goals is by selecting something you truly want to accomplish. When a goal is based on something you want to do, you are more likely to follow through and be successful at meeting the goal. Identify why you should achieve your goal and how it will positively impact your life and align with your core values.
- Make your goal a SMART Goal. When setting your goals, set yourself up for success by making sure your goal is a SMART goal. A SMART goal is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. Setting SMART goals allows you to examine your goals more carefully to give them more structures that can be easily tracked and implemented.
- Commit to your goals. Make your goals one of your top daily priorities. Put in the necessary time and effort required to achieve them. Identify barriers in reaching your goals so you can navigate them properly when they occur and stay on track.
- Find ways to remind yourself why you want to achieve the goal. You could use visual reminders such as a picture of what your motivation is and place it somewhere you view daily. You could also write your reminders on sticky notes and put them in places you often see, such as on a mirror or the refrigerator.
- Make a plan to achieve your goal by setting a series of short term goals. To accomplish a goal, a few behaviors often need to change and steps to take to reach the goal. Identify those behaviors and steps, make a plan, and prioritize which ones need to be accomplished first.
Achieving long-term goals is essential because it helps you create the life you imagined while focusing on aspects of your life that you value most. It takes time and practice to achieve the goals we set for ourselves, but it will become easier if you commit to your goals with time.
By, Coach Mariah