5 tips for setting new goals

If you want to make meaningful changes in your life, setting realistic goals can help. You might want to improve your fitness, change your relationship with food or find ways to build your self-confidence.

Whatever you aim to do, our tips on goal setting can help you hit milestones and stay motivated.

The clearer your goals are the easier it will be to stick to them. For example, you might want to work on your endurance. So, instead of saying that you want to do more cardio, you could set a goal that clearly outlines how, why and when you’ll work towards it.

You could say, “I want to spend 30 minutes doing high-intensity interval training 3 times a week because it will help improve my heart health and fitness.”

This is a SMART goal. This means that it is:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Time-bound.

By creating goals using this framework you can hold yourself accountable and think about how realistic they are. Writing down your ideas and editing them can help you decide how realistic they are for your life.

For example, it might be more achievable to lose 2 kg over 5 weeks than over 2 weeks.

Tracking your progress is arguably as important as working towards your goals. It can help to keep you motivated and highlight areas where you are doing well (or might need to improve).

Tools like journals, apps and habit trackers are all ways of monitoring your progress. If you’re unsure of what might work best for you, try a few. You may find that you prefer to use one to make note of all your progress or you may want to use a combination of tools to see how far you’ve come.

And when you notice that you’ve reached milestones, take the time to celebrate them. It’s a great way of keeping motivated and a clear indicator that you’re getting closer to your overarching targets.

Although you may have a specific target in mind, creating habits around it can help you achieve it. For example, you may want to eat a healthier, more balanced diet during the week. To support your lifestyle change, you might consider taking a regular cooking class or having check-ins with a nutritionist to help keep you on track.

However you choose to add new habits to your routine, it’s important to stay consistent with them. You don’t have to make huge changes, small everyday actions can make all the difference.

Involving others in your journey towards achieving your goals can help in keeping you focused. Friends, family or accountability partners can regularly check whether you’re sticking to your commitments and provide praise and support when you need it.

They can also help remove barriers to your success. If you struggle with snacking, they can remove tempting food items from your home. Or if you don’t have the ability to get to your local gym, they may be able to offer you transport.

Your network can support you in variety but letting them know how will maximise the impact they can have. Try to have an open conversation about your goals so that they know how and when they can offer help.

Taking the time to review how far you’ve come, what worked and what hasn’t can help you decide how achievable your goals are.

You can ask yourself:

• What did you achieve?
• What challenges did you face?
• What did you feel as you worked towards your goals?
• What did you learn?

These questions can help you evaluate how well you’ve done and adjust your goals to suit your lifestyle. Although you may have set SMART goals before you started, your circumstances may have changed. This might have made it harder to work on your objectives. But that’s okay.

You can always reset and find approaches that work better for your life.