The Problem with Health Goal Setting
Health goal setting is all fun and games… until you’re one month in and find yourself in a constant battle to stick to your new healthy goal and telling yourself:
“If only I had more willpower…”
Willpower? Overrated!
When it comes to setting health goals, it’s easy to end up in a game of tug of war with yourself…
You have the ‘I should…’ team, while on the other, you have the ‘I want’ team.
📺 I should workout today instead of watching Netflix on my couch…
🥗 I should eat salad for lunch instead of that juicy burger…
🥡 I should make dinner instead of ordering takeout…
And which option wins nine times out of 10?
*Cue the victory cheers for the one and only: I want team!*
When it comes to your health, chances are you already know what you ‘should’ be doing.
But the action part comes after the ‘I should’ thought that seems to have a mind of its own, leading towards a boomerang of progress… which always seems to end up right back where it started.
(P.S. If beating yourself up over not doing what you ‘should’ do made you healthier, I’d be out of a job. You’re not broken; you just haven’t cracked your habit code yet.)
The solution to setting and achieving your health goals isn’t focusing on what you ‘should’ be doing… it’s focusing on aligning your habits with your goals, so your actions become second nature (kicking ‘I should’ to the curb- later, loser!).
And the kicker? You don’t even need to do anything crazy like throw out your whole pantry or buy a peloton.
Chances are, there are a few simple things you can start doing in your everyday life that will amplify your energy, mood, and health.
That’s why I’m sharing my simple 5 step process to rewiring your habits to match your goals. Let’s dive in!
The 5 Step Process to Building Healthier Habits
Step 1: Pick ONE of The Big Health Goals That You Want to Focus On
Slow your roll, party people. We’re doing this one at a time! Make a list of all your big health goals, and choose the one that feels the most urgent. Keep these goals vague for now, so you have a lot of room to work with!
For example, your list could look like this:
- Clean up my diet.
- Tone up my body.
- Lose 20 pounds.
Now, we’re going to unpack ONE of these big goals into a little more specific goal. To do this, you’re going to take your big goal and ask yourself, ‘How?’
- Big goal: Lose 20 pounds.
- How? Eat healthier, exercise more, and manage my cravings.
- Big goal: Tone up my body.
- How? Exercise more, lift weights and eat healthier.
You’ll find that most of your health goals boil down to very similar goals around diet and exercise. From there, you’ll choose one of those answers from the ‘how?’ category to work on!
I highly recommend starting with ONE focus so you can really nail down this process and easily replicate it in the future. Trying to do this with 2-3 different goals can easily lead to burnout, and you’ll end up boomeranging back to where you started.
Step 2: Observe Your Current Thoughts and Behavior Around The Goal
Once you’ve chosen one area to focus on, take a few days or a week to observe your current behavior around this health goal.
Reflect on what this goal really means to you and why accomplishing that goal is important to you.
If it helps, keep a small journal or note on your phone and document what comes up for you when you think about this goal. Also, identify some of the fears that come with this statement.
For example, if my goal is to eat healthier, what thoughts follow that statement?
- “If I eat healthier, I’ll finally lose weight.”
- “If I eat healthier, I can’t ever eat sugar again.”
- “If I eat healthier, I can only eat salads.”
- “If I eat healthier, I’m scared to go out to eat with my friends because I’ll give in to my cravings.”
- “If I give in to my cravings, I’ve ruined my healthy eating, and I’ve failed.”
For most people, eating healthier is also clouded by restrictions and bland foods. This mindset makes it nearly impossible to stick to a health goal long-term!
Step 3: Identify the Roadblock That is Stopping You From Currently Reaching Your Health Goal
Now that you’ve been observing your thoughts, positive and negative, around your health goal, it’s time to identify what exactly is stopping you from achieving it.
Health goals seem the easiest when you first start. You’re highly motivated and excited to dive in and make a change!
But then… LIFE. You get busy, tired, or something unexpected happens, which can cause us to throw in the towel because we don’t plan to navigate these roadblocks.
Your main roadblock actually has nothing to do with willpower or motivation, but it’s an actual reason that you end up ditching your health goal.
Playing on the eating healthier example: I don’t have a problem eating healthy when I have to cook food myself, but the minute I have to order food, I want everything junk under the sun!
And I find myself ordering food 2-3 times a week because I work late or I’m just too exhausted to cook.
So, my roadblock isn’t that I don’t have enough willpower to eat healthily; it’s that I need to work on my choices when it comes to eating when I’m busy.
This mindset shift gives my brain something even more specific to focus on, making it much more likely that I’ll succeed.
Step 4: Make The Healthiest Choice The Easiest (And Watch It Become a Habit!)
By identifying that ordering food is my roadblock, I can focus on building up that aspect of eating healthy instead of ‘eating healthy’ in general.
And I don’t mean by never ordering food again- but by making the healthiest choice the easiest.
Pop quiz!
I’m on my way home from a long day of work. I’m exhausted and staring! It’s already 6 pm, and I realize I don’t have any fresh veggies in the fridge to make food. What’s more appealing?
- Detour back to the store to get groceries, and then go; it’s home and spending an hour cooking.
- Order a pizza that will be at your house in 45 minutes.
If you said A, you’re on the wrong website. Obviously, B is the answer your hangry brain is rooting for (and the hangry brain wins- 12/10 times).
Your brain LOVES easy choices. And when the healthier choice is the more challenging choice, that’s when it’s easy to let your busy, tired brains make the non-healthy choice for you.
But what if you prepared for this moment and added another option into the mix?
- Detouring back to the store to get groceries, and then going home and spending an hour cooking.
- Order a pizza that will be at your house in 45 minutes.
- Pop a healthier, frozen pizza in the oven that is ready in 15 minutes.
By choosing C, your hangry brain is happy because you’ll have food in half the time as A and B. And you’ll end up eating half the calories you would’ve by choosing B.
Step 5: Rewrite Your Goal to Match Your New Habit!
Now that I know my roadblock is ordering food when I’m busy, I can always make sure to have some healthier meals stocked and ready to go for those not-so unpredictable moments.
This leads to my NEW goal: order food once a week or less.
Whether that’s through meal prepping some extra food or stocking up on some healthier frozen options, you’re building a sustainable habit that will help you reach your health goals way faster than your old one.
This may seem like a minor fix, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s huge!
Changing a habit from ordering food 2-3 times a week to warming up leftovers or a frozen pizza saves you so much time, money, and guilt. That’s about ten meals a month!
Here’s another health goal, laid out in the five steps habit-forming fashion:
Old Goal: I want to exercise regularly and be super fit- I’m going to exercise 5 days a week.
Behavior: I go to the gym consistently until I get too busy. And, sometimes, I feel so overwhelmed by the thought of thinking of workouts to do, so I skip days and tell myself, “I’ll start over next week.”
Roadblock: Deciding what workouts to do and being too busy to stick to 5 days a week.
Healthiest AND easiest choice: Invest in an affordable strength training app that tells me exactly what to do, so I never have to think about it again.
New goal: I’m going to exercise 2-3x a week, and I’m going to invest in an affordable strength training app that tells me exactly what to do, so I never have to think about it again.
Bonus Step: Stop Beating Yourself Up
Like I said before if beating yourself up over NOT hitting your goals worked, I’d be out of a job.
The same actions and habits that work for others might not work for you, and that’s ok!
Part of this process is finding a compromise between your big health goals and sustainable healthy habits.
But now comes the hard part… how do you know which goals and actions work for you?
While you can DIY, trial and error it, this is also where having the accountability and perspective of a health coach comes in handy.
Click the button below to talk about all things health goals by scheduling your free consultation call!