How I support my clients in setting achievable, wellness goals.

Being strategic in your goal setting is one of the most effective ways to make progress on your health and wellness journey. I hear so often, “I just want to be healthier,” or “I’m trying to be healthy,” and it makes me wonder: what exactly does that mean? First and foremost, consider that health is bio-individual. The term “bioindividuality” was created by Joshua Rosenthal, the founder and director of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN) in New York City.

Bioindividuality is defined as: “there is not a one-size-fits-all diet, each person is a unique individual with highly individualized nutritional requirements.” He continues to state: “In bio-individuality, we recognize each individual body will differ in their nutritional needs as a result of their external and internal factors like the foods we eat, our emotional thoughts, lifestyle patterns, and our surrounding physical environment” (simplemills.com).

This is not only relevant to nutritional needs, it expands beyond that. Your life circumstances are specific to you, both in terms of your health history, your experiences, your day to day, and more. This idea of ‘getting healthy’ must be defined according to you, your body, your needs, and where you are at currently on your wellness journey. The vagueness that comes with wanting to “get healthy” will prevent you from making progress in any area of your health. Consider how your decision to “get healthier” may be influenced by your specific ‘bio-individual’ circumstances and then plan your goals accordingly.

I’ve learned that goals should be measurable, realistic, specific, and accessible. Setting goals that align with this structure can facilitate long term success and ward off short term crash and burn. Break down your goal piece by piece, and identify the goal as it relates to you and how it can be woven into your daily routine.

⭐️ Set goals that are measurable. How are you tracking your progress? Goal: drink more water. How many ounces? Per day? Per week? Goal: exercise more. How many days a week? How many minutes of exercise? Goal: eat more fruits and vegetables. Define more. An additional serving per day? One snack that is either a fruit or a vegetable daily? Similarly, start small with your time frame. Setting a larger, six month goal encourages room for complacency and a potential loss of interest. Instead, create smaller goals with smaller time frames, that way, you’re focusing on more immediate, concrete goals, and you’re able to utilize a sense of accomplishment with each passing goal as momentum (i.e. a combination of smaller goals in shorter time frames to compose a larger goal over the course of the year). This is often how I work with clients: there are smaller goals that compose the goal at large but we are able to measure progress from week to week in a quantitative way.

⭐️ Set goals that are specific. As mentioned above, setting a goal such as, “get healthier.” Define healthier, what does that look like to you? What does that mean for you? What would it mean for you to ‘be healthier?’ Are you more energized? Sleeping better? Are you able to exercise without excessive fatigue? Do you want to improve your diet? If so, where is your diet struggling? Are you looking to integrate more movement throughout the week? What type of movement do you prefer? Is your water intake lacking? What are ways you can consume water? Has sleep fallen on your list of priorities? How can you ensure adequate rest each night? Asking yourself these questions, depending on your goal, can allow you to hone in on the specifics of how this particular goal will embed itself into your lifestyle. Goals that are vague or too broad leave room for interpretation and make them harder to stick to. This approach, honing in on the specifics, not only supports the client in identifying the details of his or her goal, but it also allows me, as a coach, to truly get to know my client on a deeper level. Once I know the specifics, I can then tailor my focus to better supporting them at that, more microscopic, level.

⭐️ Set goals that are realistic. Is it realistic to set an exercise goal of 7 days a week when currently, you’re barely able to find time two days out of the week? Try working towards that goal. I qualify this as “New Year’s Syndrome.” What happens to the majority of the resolutions that we set for the New Year? They fail and oftentimes, within the first three weeks of January.

While the example above can be the goal at large, the incremental goals in between are critical for habit development and gradual building upon a solid foundation. This goes against the ‘quick fix’ mentality that saturates the wellness industry. The belief that we must go in, ‘all or nothing,’ is where we begin to encounter trouble. While it may feel tedious to have to start small, or as I say, “meet yourself where you are and take an inch,” I find this to be THE most effective way for long term success.

Begin by increasing your days by one and gradually tack on more from there. Beginning with a largely intimidating and ‘stretchful’ goal is unrealistic and will likely set you up for failure. Ambition is important, but being overambitious in setting unrealistic goals will set you back even further from what you’re trying to accomplishment. Start small and grow. This is a huge part of my work with clients. For clients who are starting from square one, it sometimes takes just integrating 5 minutes of movement into the day — simply to build the habit. This is okay. This is what will help create sustainable change over the course of several weeks and months. Remember: meet yourself where you are and then take an inch.

⭐️ Set goals that are accessible. Expecting too much or establishing goals that are genuinely outside of your means (financial, physical, just in general), will likely be difficult to achieve, and will leave you feeling discouraged and defeated. Setting a goal to attend boutique spin classes four days a week that are wildly expensive or a 40 minute drive away, is much less likely to happen than if you were to just hop on a stationary bike at your local gym 5 minutes down the road. Access is a HUGE component in whether or not you’ll find success with your goals. How can you achieve your goals within the access of your daily routine?

List your goals. And then reflect on how you might be able to modify them based on the list above. If you need support in goal setting or are interested in accountability and guidance on your wellness journey, feel free to schedule a call with me below.