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We have finally welcomed in the new year! That means it’s time to let go of all the things we did not accomplish in the past year, and look forward to all the things we hope to accomplish in the new year. We do this by forgiving ourselves for the goals that we were not able to achieve, and instead of dwelling or beating ourselves up over it, we look to all the many opportunities waiting for us now.
If you’re anything like me sometimes it can be hard to let those goals go, especially if those goals meant a lot to you. However, you have to remind yourself to look at the bright side, which is that not achieving those goals doesn’t make you a loser or a failure of any kind. It just simply means that you were destined to achieve something else during that period of your life.
So the first step to letting go of everything that you didn’t achieve last year, is by setting intentional goals that you can achieve this year.
Intentional goals are goals that are made with the intention of achieving them. These are goals that often times take a priority over all of your other goals. Goals that have a deeper meaning to you and serve a greater purpose for your life now and for the future you desire. These are goals that you without a doubt in your mind would absolutely love to be able to achieve, because they are essential to living a more fulfilled life.
In other words, intentional goals are goals that you are actively working towards achieving and completing every single day until you have done just that.
With the new year upon us now, I’m once again making intentional wellness goals that I am determined to achieve this year. I usually make very vague wellness goals that I know I’m not likely to commit to. Such as trying to make a commitment to engage in super intense workouts every day of the week, or changing my diet to only eating white meat, fruits, and vegetables. Like always these types of goals have proven to be ineffective because they weren’t made with the intention of keeping up with the habit. Instead they were made with the hope that changing past behaviors would influence immediate results.
This year will be different.
Intentional wellness goals do not promise immediate results. There are no shortcuts, nothing is meant to be easy, and absolutely nothing results from these goals if you don’t learn how to make them a habit. I learned this the hard way for many, many years and now I’m here to help prevent you from doing the same.
This year set intentional wellness goals that you intend on making a positive wellness habit in your life. If you’re currently at a lost about where to begin no worries. Here’s where you should start.
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Intentional Wellness Goal Setting: How to Make Them
There are three steps to making intentional wellness goals. The first step, as discussed above, is to let go everything that you were not able to accomplish previously. The second step is to have a clear vision about wellness goals that you would like to achieve now. The third and final step is to set the intention to achieve them.
Step one: let go of everything that you were not able to accomplish
Take a moment to just be honest with yourself. When you don’t achieve something that you may or may not have had your heart set on achieving you often times feel like a failure. It’s a natural feeling that we all feel from time to time, but that doesn’t mean it’s true. Instead of harboring those feelings and beating yourself up about it, just accept the fact that you did not achieve those goals and move on. The faster you allow yourself to move on the more excited you will be about your future.
The past holds us back from moving towards the future. This methodology applies to all areas of your life including your health and wellness. Wellness goals become harder to achieve when you intentionally hold yourself back from achieving what you are capable of now. Wellness has many different levels of comfort, of intensity, and of commitment. Maybe the goals you were setting previously were a little over ambitious and you attempted to jump at doing something that you were not yet ready for.
In cases like these, take those moments to learn something and evolve from it. Slow and steady wins the race, and sometimes that means we have to let the past remain in the past and create a future we desire from a blank canvas.
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Step two: have a clear vision about your current wellness goals
The best part about letting things go is that your mind then becomes clear enough to focus on the here and now. You’re no longer living in the past with an intense amount of focus on what you didn’t complete. Instead you have shifted your focus to the here and now and are allowing yourself to be present in the current moment with your current goals.
Once you’ve moved on from the past and your goals have become crystal clear you can then begin to slowly craft them out in more detail. For example, if one of your goals is to lose 30 pounds by the summertime, you can start planning out how you would like to do it in more detail. So maybe you would start with practicing cleaning eating two days out of the week, doing cardio one day out of the week, and going on hour long walks every day of the week.
With a clear and specific vision about how you plan to achieve a very simple wellness goal such as the one listed above, you’re allowing yourself to reach the gold at reasonably slow and realistic rate.
Step three: set the intention to achieve them
A big part if adopting an effective wellness routine is developing positive habits. For example, if you do not occasionally engage in clean eating, leaving your old diet behind and jumping right into this new diet on day one can throw you completely off balance. This is not a habit you are learning to create, it’s just something you are doing in the hopes of seeing immediate results.
The best way to avoid this is to allow yourself to slowly ease into this new lifestyle. Learn what your tolerances may or may not be, what you may or may not want to incorporate into your wellness routine, and go from there. If you may need a little help discovering the kind of wellness routine you’d like to adopt that best compliments your lifestyle, don’t worry. I have two options that will effectively assist you in doing so.
If you want to take things nice and slow and discover the power of wellness, what it is, and the kind of impact it can have on your life, then you are going to want to sign up for the free Live Well Health and Wellness email course. This course will teach you about:
- what wellness is
- the many different ways it can be practiced
- how to create the perfect daily wellness routine for you
- how to consistently manifest such a routine in your life
And much more!
If you want something that has a little bit more speed to it and it a more intense, then you are going to want to invest in Cassey’s (my favorite online fitness coach) PIIT28 Transformation Pack. PIIT is a Pilates Intense Interval Training workout that will help you get to your fittest self is exactly 28 minutes. Included in the pack is:
- PIIT 1.0
- PIIT 2.O
- PIIT 3.0
- The 28 Day Reset
The different PIIT versions are all different levels of the PIIT workout routine. If you have never done a PIIT workout routine before I highly suggest you start with PIIT 1.0 and slowly work your way up to PIIT 3.0. The 28 Day Reset is a book filled with delicious clean eating recipes that are sure to help you stay on track with all your health and wellness goals. The PIIT28 Transformation Pack can truly be life changing for you if you commit to seeing the process through.
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Intentional Wellness Goal Setting: How to Set Them
Now that we’ve covered the basics on how to make intentional wellness goals it’s time to explore how to actually set them so that they are indeed intentional. One thing to keep in mind about the word intention, is the fact that it means you are actively planning or aiming to complete something. When you set the intention to achieve something you are making the decision to see that choice through no matter what may get in the way.
This honestly is probably the hardest part of setting intentional wellness goals simply because it is going to require a great amount of commitment on your end. When setting wellness goals you have to commit to the decision to engage in it no matter what happens throughout your day. Whether it’s big or small, you have to have the mental strength to not let it get in the way of seeing your goals through.
Consistency is the biggest determining factor for success in adopting a wellness routine of any kind. That consistency comes from committing to the process from the start.
One way I like to keep track of my goals to ensure that I am actively working towards achieving them every day is by writing them all down. To do this I use a calendar to keep track of specific activities I am going to do on specific days, as well as the time frame for how long I plan on engaging in that activity. This helps me have a clear vision of what needs to get done on specific days, and during what time of day, in order to ensure that I am making my health a priority in my life.
I find this extremely effective because I can see with my own eyes just how much work, and how big of a commitment I am making to my wellness goals.
Intentional Wellness Goal Setting: How to Stick to Them
Now comes the part where some would say is the hardest part, and others would probably argue that it may be the easiest part. For me personally I think this is the easy part. Sticking to your wellness goals is a lot like teaching yourself how to set them. You have to develop the habit of scheduling it in, in your day like you would schedule anything else important in your life.
Treat your wellness routine like an appointment that you can’t afford to miss.
This is why I like to use a calendar to help me keep track of all my wellness goals. It’s something that I can physically see every single day, and holds me accountable for making that appointment on time.
Here’s a sort of wacky routine I use to do in the beginning when I was first learning how to adopt an effective wellness routine for myself.
I use to spend about 30 minutes on YouTube every night right before going to bed watching workout videos that focused on areas of my body I wanted to focus on. I would strategically chose videos that were not time consuming, that didn’t seem too intense, and that were being led by someone that I felt I could trust would guide me in achieving my desired transformation (which is how I found and fell in love with Cassey at Blogilates).
After finding a video or two (sometimes I would do more than one video in a day) that I believed would work well for me, I would wake up as early as I possibly could (this ranged anywhere from 4am-6am) and complete the workout(s). I would do this for three days out of the whole week as a jump start the commitment to working out, and then for the other two days of the week I would treat them as rest days.
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I did this for about six months before I grew tired of the routine, but it most certainly did help me discover what I love and did not love specifically about wellness and working out.
Some of the things I discovered that I didn’t like was waking up super early in the morning to work out, and only working out three days out of the whole week. Some things that I discovered I did like about my wellness routine were the type of videos I was choosing to follow on my journey, how it made me feel after engaging in it, and the fact that I really did see positive changes in my life as a result of it.
In test driving this wellness routine, I was able to find my rhythm and what best served me. I learned things that I believed would be effective for me and my wellness journey, as well as things that I believed simply had no purpose for me. Knowing these things helped me better understand what it was that I was seeking in a wellness routine as well as how to best achieve those goals and results for myself.
As the new year begins and you slowly start to develop your very own health and wellness routine, I want you to keep these three things in mind.
First…
Wellness takes times. It does not happen overnight and it is not always a perfect system at the beginning. You will try and fail, experiment and eliminate, until you finally find things that work best for you. Until you do, don’t be afraid to try new things, open yourself up to new possibilities, and find your own rhythm.
Second…
There will be many moments of discouragement but don’t let them get to you. You will have setbacks, results you anticipate to see will often times come later rather than sooner, and there will be times when you will feel like there’s no point in continuing the process. Wellness is more than just a physical habit. It’s a mental, spiritual, and emotional habit that in time you will come to discover how it can best serve you.
Three…
Don’t compare your now to everyone else’s current. You will always be at a different stage in your wellness journey than others. Stick to what makes the most sense for you, to what makes you comfortable, and to what best fits your personal lifestyle. Wellness is a habit, not just something that you do for fun (although it can be fun). Commit and stick to it and you will eventually see the results that you desire, starting from the inside out.
Related Posts: 5 Ways You Can Make Your Physical Health A Wellness Habit
-Xo
Kimora