How to keep those pesky New Years resolutions!

Happy 2011 everyone!  I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season.  I took a little blog hiatus to head back east and visit family but I am back and ready to get back to my old routine!! 

Now that the holidays are over and we have entered a new year I bet a lot of you have made a resolution or two (or ten!) but come February 1st (or even January 2nd!) most of us will already have given up or even forgotten our plans!  Think about your local gym, I know many of you are not looking forward to the extra people who will take your treadmills and machines but give it a week or two and it will go back to the normal.  Why is that?  Most people don't know how to set goals that are achievable so I thought I would give you a few pointers on proper goal setting.  This should make keeping those pesky New Year's resolutions a lot easy!!

When setting a goal (or resolution) think about making them S.M.A.R.T.  This helps take those vague ideas and transform them into reality!

Specific - A specific goal has a much greater chance of being achieved than a general goal. 

Example - A general goal would be "I want to get in shape."  Pretty vague, huh?  A better and more specific goal would be "Join a health club and go 3 times a week."

Measurable - Establish concrete ways to measure your goals.  Goals need to be measurable so there is no doubt about whether you achieved them.  They also help you measure progress.  

To determine if your goal is measurable ask questions, like "How much?" or "How many"

Attainable - Your goal must be attainable - not too difficult but also, not too easy!  Easy goals don't motivate you and overly difficult goals may frustrate you.


Relevant -  Your goals must be relevant to your particular interests, abilities, and needs. 

Time-bound - Your goal must be bound by specific deadlines.  Timelines can be short and long term (actually short term goals help you break down your bigger goals into more manageable steps) and should help you stay focused. 

For example, if you wanted to lose 10 lbs in 10 weeks that gives you a timeline for when you want to reach your goal.  You can go further and break down that larger goal into smaller goals of losing 1 lb a week.

Hopefully these tips will help you reach all of your goals for 2011! 

A toast to a happy and healthy new year!

E-