Once you’ve committed to your goal and have support and accountability, you’re ready to make your first healthy lifestyle change. Let’s dig into which change to choose first and how to turn it into a SMART change.
Task #1: Plan it Out
When you are choosing the first change to make, think back to the goal you have committed to. What steps do you have to take to reach your goal? Get a piece of paper and map out how you will get from where you are now to your health goal.
If your goal is to lose 50 lbs, then a possible step is to cut down on sugary drinks or go to the gym more often. If your goal is to eat more vegetables, then you may choose a handful of vegetables to eat more of.
The key here is to write down everything you know you need to change in order to reach your health goal. After you’ve done that, which change is the easiest and most immediate for you to make right now? Do you have everything you need to make that change right now?
If you said yes to both of the questions above, then you’ve figured out your first change. Write it down on a piece of paper or type it in your notes. Now, let’s turn it into a SMART change.
Task #2: Make a SMART Healthy Lifestyle Change
You may have already heard of the acronym SMART that’s used when making goals and changes. Making a SMART change means to make a specific change that is measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound.
Let’s add to the change you’ve written down to turn it into a SMART change…
SPECIFIC
Let’s make your change as specific as possible. If you want to cut down on sugary beverages, pick one sugary beverage to focus on. If you want to go to the gym, what days do you want to go? Or if you want to eat more vegetables, which vegetables are you going to eat more of?
MEASURABLE
After you make your change as specific as possible, you need to include a way to measure it. You won’t know how you’re doing if you don’t include some kind of measurement.
For example, if your first change is to cut down on sodas, how many sodas will you cut down to? If you want to go to the gym, how much time will you spend working out? If you want to eat more vegetables, how many times per day or week will you eat them?
When choosing a measurement, you can be really specific – 5 days of the week. Or you can choose a limit – more than 3 days a week or less than 5 a day. Just choose whatever works for you.
ACHIEVABLE AND REALISTIC
After you have a way to measure how you’re doing, double check to make sure your change is achievable and realistic.
If your health goal is to stop drinking sodas, it may not be realistic to go from 7 sodas a day to zero right away. You may be setting yourself up for failure and a really bad caffeine and sugar withdrawal. It’s not that you won’t be able to reach your goal, but that stopping cold turkey may not be realistic for you.
And that’s totally ok. You’ll reach your goal, don’t worry. You just have to make small changes to get there.
As the saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day. So, if you haven’t yet developed the discipline of making changes, be aware that it may take a little more time for you to be able to make bigger or more difficult changes. But you’ll get there, whether it’s at the hare’s pace or the tortoise’s pace (and we all know who won that race).
TIME-BOUND
Once you’ve confirmed that your first healthy lifestyle change is realistic and achievable, the last step is to make it time-bound. Normally, you’d want to immediately make the change and keep it for life. But if that’s not the case, then be sure to write down when you want to start making the change and for how long you want to keep it.
An example of this would be to start going to the gym next Monday until you lose 20 lbs. (Though I would recommend you keep going to the gym after losing 20 lbs because activity is good for your body.)
You may also want to give yourself a deadline to make the change. This is great if you have an event coming up that you need to be ready for.
By the way, the best motivation to carry out your change is to sign-up for an event that will require that change. A 5k is a great example of this.
To Sum Up Step #3
If you remember anything about this step, remember this… The key to making changes that last is to make one SMART change at a time.
We often try to make too many changes at once, which can overwhelm us. You must allow yourself time to develop discipline.
Here’s the trade-off: you can do one change really well or many changes kinda well. Which one will you choose?
When you’re ready, you know what to do next 👇