Happy New Year!
I hope, like me, you were able to take some time away from work and the hustle of daily life to spend time with your loved ones and reflect on the past year over the Christmas and New Year holidays. For me, the end of 2020 has been bittersweet. It was a year of great personal change and growth and gave me more time with my family than ever before. This past year taught me about priorities and setting boundaries in my life in order to keep my focus on my top priorities. This year taught me that change, although scary, can lead to beautiful growth and happiness. And these are the lessons I am choosing to carry forward with me into 2021 as I set my goals for the next year.
The new year always gives us a chance to reset and make goals for our upcoming year. Unfortunately, many of these goals are lost all too quickly after the novelty of the new year fades. Especially as moms, life gets busy and often times our own goals get pushed to the back burner while we strive to help our family meet their goals and needs. So today I want to discuss a few ways to help you stick to and meet your health and wellness goals for 2021.
MAKE IT VISIBLE
Write your goals down and make them visible. This may mean putting them on a fridge or family bulletin board. This may mean announcing them on social media. By making your goals visible, you inherently feel more accountable and more motivated to meet them. Also by making your goals visible to your family, your family can help YOU accomplish your goals the way you are constantly helping them. As moms, we often get so busy “momming” that we forget our spouse and kids also want us to thrive and part of thriving is making your health and wellness a top priority.
MAKE A PLAN
Setting goals is awesome, but goals are only far-off dreams unless you make a plan. Take the time to make a plan that includes step-by-step actions that can help you accomplish your goal. It is much easier to make time in your schedule for an action or task that helps your work toward your goal than it is to write “get healthy” on your to-do list. Now when that goal seems too lofty or overwhelming, you can simply look at your action plan and try to accomplish step one, then step two, and so on. Remember, this is your goal for the year so it does not have to be accomplished in one day. By having an action plan, you give yourself a straight forward outline to achieve your goals and you give yourself a blueprint to go back to a few weeks or months down the road if you find you have gotten off track.
TRACK YOUR PROGRESS
Just like it is important to have an action plan, you must track your progress in order to know where you are on the road to reaching your goals. Set weekly or monthly check-ins with yourself to determine where you are at in your plan, how your plan may need to be revised, and to schedule your tasks for the next week or month to stay on track to achieving your goal. Don’t forget, there are many paths to accomplishing a goal. If your current plan is not giving you the results you were hoping for, start fresh with a new plan and go from there.
SEEK OUT HELP
Health and wellness goals can be difficult to achieve on your own – whether it be trying to get your physical health on track, improving your mental health, recovering from a nagging pain or injury, starting a new exercise routine, or improving your ability to participate in work/recreational/family life. There are so many amazing health care professionals – physical therapists, occupational therapists, chiropractors, psychologists, psychiatrists, medical doctors, personal trainers, etc – who want nothing more than to help you achieve your goal. We are all highly trained in our respective areas to be able to help you make goals, make plans, and reach your goals, and most of us LOVE doing it!
I hope these small tips can help a few of you to start your goal setting and accomplish your goals in 2021! Remember getting the appropriate professional help may be the first step in reaching your health and wellness goal this year. Please reach out to me today at Life Changes Physical Therapy at (402) 619-6222 if you feel like physical therapy could help you meet your goals this year. We always offer a FREE consultation to see if physical therapy is the right fit for you. Help me reach my goals this year by allowing me to help you achieve yours!