After the grueling year we’ve all had, you aren’t alone if your health and wellness habits fell to the wayside. But Spring is upon us, and now is the perfect time to give your wellness goals and habits a refresh and take some time to evaluate your wellness goals and aspirations.
In order to make your goals a reality, you need a system to work upon that supports your journey. Working gradually and diligently, having a system to work from can help you establish a solid foundation for becoming your best self and reintegrating the wellness habits that matter most to you. An excellent way to do this is with visual goal tracking—it creates a system that you can rely on for daily, weekly and monthly check-ins and provides some much needed accountability along the way. Here’s how to get started.
Start Small
When it comes to reaching our goals, it can be easy to overestimate our abilities or choose larger than life goals to achieve. Unfortunately, this can often lead to feelings of burnout or defeat if we find ourselves struggling to meet the high expectations we’ve placed on ourselves.
That’s why it’s so important to always start small when setting your wellness goals. Maybe your goal is to lose weight. Instead of setting an impossible weight loss goal in a short period of time, consider choosing a smaller, simpler habit that you know you can achieve daily. For example, “replace one sugary snack with veggies every day” is far more attainable than “lose 5 pounds a week.” By committing to a small daily habit that you know you can meet, you create a positive feedback loop that encourages you to keep moving forward (rather than feeling discouraged when you don’t meet a lofty goal.)
Create check-in rituals
The point of visual goal tracking is to have a visual view of your progress that you can reference daily. By checking in every day, we help ourselves stay committed and on track. Instead of glancing at your goal tracker whenever you happen to have some down time, consider creating a daily ritual with yourself that you look forward to.
By intentionally carving out time to meet with yourself each day—whether that’s in the morning before your day gets started or in the evening while you reflect on your day—you can set yourself up for more success by having a daily ritual you look forward to. You could even implement journaling time, meditation, or affirmations into your daily check-in ritual to make it more personal.
Don’t fall into comparison
Everyone’s wellness journey is unique, but it can be easy to fall into the trap of comparing your goals to the goals of the people around you or those you follow on social media. It’s critical to remember that your life, your schedule, and your dreams are all personal to you and nobody else. When we compare our progress to others, it creates feelings of defeat, discouragement and self-criticism—all things that can derail your progress and keep you stuck.
Make a point to free yourself from comparison and remember that wellness runs on a wide spectrum. What works for someone else may not work for you, and what someone accomplishes in one week might take you a couple months. And that is 100% okay! Your wellness goals are personal and unique to you, and the only thing that matters is that you’re working towards becoming the best version of yourself—not someone else! When you learn to ignore thoughts of comparison and instead focus on your own needs and finding a pace that works for you, you’ll find yourself accomplishing more than you thought possible.
Ultimately, visually tracking your goals can become something you look forward to, and motivate you to prioritize your own dreams and aspirations. As you build momentum and have a visual reference of how far you’ve come, it becomes enjoyable to keep challenging yourself to new heights. No matter what your wellness goals are—and no matter how small!—making a commitment to show up for yourself is all that matters.
To help you get started, these printable Wellness Wheels were designed by CreditRepair to help you start tracking your personal wellness goals. Use them to create consistency in integrating your wellness habits into your daily life and build momentum along the way. Achieving your wellness goals doesn’t have to be intimidating—it’s all about starting small, giving yourself grace for the ups and downs, and choosing to make your own personal growth a priority. Remember, you are far more capable than you believe!
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