How to Set Achievable Wellness Goals for The New Year
Introduction by Host: Dr. Gee
The new year is quickly approaching! This means that it is time to set our goals for the upcoming year. There are many types of goals you can set for yourself, but today, we are going to talk about wellness goals in particular. How can you plan for your goals to succeed? That is what we will discuss today.
Point 1: Consider Holistic Wellness
Wellness has many aspects, and when we talk about all of them, we refer to it as ‘holistic wellness.’* When setting a goal, it is important to think about all aspects of holistic wellness, not just the one you are looking at setting a goal for. You have to consider your emotional health when setting financial goals, and you have to think about your social health when setting physical goals. If you do not look at every aspect of holistic wellness, you will take a step forward in one area, and two steps back in another.
* See our other articles on the website for a more detailed explanation of holistic wellness.
Point 2: Consider Your Life Priorities and Needs
As we get into the new year, marketing will be advertising numerous goals and ways to accomplish them for you to try. Most of these are actually important, but which ones are important for YOU? It is good to have financial health, but are your finances already healthy? Then you can put those types of goals aside, and focus on the ones that you personally need in your life.
Point 3: Be Specific
When you set goals, you need to have a specific destination in mind. You may want to improve your physical health, but what does that specifically look like? Do you want to be able to run a marathon, or just be able to take a walk without losing your breath? Make your goals SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound).
Point 4: Break Each Goal Down
Now that you have a specific goal set for yourself, break apart the journey you will take to get there. Going back to the physical health goal, if you want to be able to run a marathon, plan out some checkpoints along the way. Maybe in 3 months, you want to be able to run a quarter of a marathon. By July, you want to be running half a marathon. Break down the goal into smaller, more manageable pieces and you will achieve your goals.
Point 5: Record and Assess Progress Periodically
The final piece of advice for setting goals this year is to record your progress. You will not wake up one day and find that your goals have been achieved. There are steps you will have to take in order to reach that destination. As you are taking these steps, write down the successes and failures you are experiencing. And then learn from these steps: What worked? What didn’t work? What needs to change to keep you moving towards your goals?
Summary
As we head into 2024, it is a great time to set new goals for ourselves this year. However, we want to have the best chance of success as we possibly can. By making our goals specific to us, lining up the steps we need to take, and recording our progress on our steps, we can all make goals that are possible to achieve!
By Dr. Gee, Success and Holistic Wellness Advocate
