Last week, we talked about setting goals for 2021. Having goals is important, but without an action plan, they are useless. So, let’s talk about how to create an action plan for your health and fitness goal.
- Look over your goals. Is there a health goal that if you accomplished it, many other goals will be accomplished? In other words, what goal will be a catalyst for other goals in your list. Make that goal your Power Health goal and tackle it first.
- Rewrite your Power Health goal so it is specific, measurable, and in present tense (like it has been accomplished). Include why this goal is important to you. Why do you want to accomplish this goal?
· For example: I have lost 30 pounds so that I can easily hike in the mountains with my spouse and kids on vacation this summer.
- Now, do a Braindump – brainstorm all ideas that come to mind that you need to know, do, acquire, master, and so on. Do not worry about the order. Just write down everything that comes to mind. Keep the list.
- Next, organize your brainstorming in a logical sequence.
- What steps do you need to do to accomplish your goal? Is there an order things need to be done in?
- Reverse engineer your goal and create milestones you want to accomplish every week. Breaking a goal into smaller pieces makes it feel more doable. Committing to something for a week is much easier that committing to a 6-month plan. Knowing we have 6 months to reach a goal makes it easy for us to procrastinate. But, it we create smaller milestone goals, it is easier to stay committed.
- For each milestone, create a list of tasks you want to complete. It may not be a “to-do”, it might be an attitude, habit, or choice.
· Going back to the weight loss goal example… it might look like this.
- Your goal is lose 1 pound per week.
- Week 1 – The “to-do” is to drink a glass of water before each meal.
- Week 2 – Eliminate sugar coffee drinks.
- Week 3 – Walk 10,000 steps per day.
- Week 4 – Find 3 new healthy ways to prepare veggies, find an at home resistance training workout
- Week 5 – Resistance train 3 days
- Make sure that the “to-do” items are small enough that they are doable. If you add too many things at once, it becomes overwhelming and when you slip, it is easy to give up.
- At each milestone, re-evaluate and adjust if needed. AND celebrate your progress and success!