Daily Lifestyle Modification – Making Small Changes Leads to Big Consequences

Daily Lifestyle Modification- Making Small Changes Leads to Big Consequences

Small lifestyle changes lead to [rewarding] outcomes

After working all day, taking care of children, pets, and doing housework, we may feel like we don’t have the necessary time to give back to ourselves. We are often bombarded with tasks so monotonous and time consuming in nature, that we may end up feeling like we haven’t fulfilled our true desires to reach our health goals. So how do we go about affecting change into our daily lives, that will lead to a better quality of life?  

Picture a child learning a new skill- how to walk, how to color with a crayon, or brush their teeth. The way these skills are taught is in incremental steps that can easily be broken down into small components. With repetition and many failed attempts, these skills will eventually become second nature. Now picture yourself as this child, as you once were, and realize that you wouldn’t get upset at a child learning how to implement a new task, so be patient with yourself as you are figuring out this process. 

Goals need to be S.M.A.R.T.

The key to sticking to any goal, is to first define meaningful outcomes you wish to achieve. For example, if you wish to become fit and gain strength, what exactly does that mean to you? How and within what time frame will this goal be accomplished? Goals need to be S.M.A.R.T. This means that any goal you set for yourself must be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. So, simply stating that you wish to become “stronger” and “get fit,” doesn’t really mean anything, if there are no details relevant to HOW you will accomplish those goals. A more specific goal would be: I want to gain muscular strength and general fitness in order to pick up my children, play with them, and run around with them for an hour at a time. A goal is one that isn’t simply achieved and then stopped. For example, if you want to lose ten pounds and achieve that goal, it’s not a great goal to aspire to.

Goals should be lifelong, in that you should always set new goals to reach to improve yourself.

This pertains especially to fitness. If everyone wanted to lose weight and accomplished that feat, then decided to stop working out, then no one would maintain the goals they’ve reached. Goals take consistency, commitment, and must be maintained. 

Now that the goal you’ve created is more specific and can be measured by specific parameters, you have to define the steps needed to attain that goal. First of all, what motivates you? This is important because initially you will need a lot of motivation to get started and build a new habit. What will your goal require you to do daily, weekly, monthly? How will you measure your progress? What professional help will you need to seek, in order to progress to your goals? These are all important questions to start asking yourself, if you’re considering setting a new goal.

With health and fitness in particular, there are prompts you can set for yourself, as a reminder. Putting workout clothes, sneakers, and other gear in your car, is a great way to get a workout in after a work shift or while on the road. Another great prompt is a fitness watch that monitors your sleep/wake cycle, activity, stress levels, and other metrics. It can be a sense of motivation to see these stats every day, and it is proven that tracking your health and fitness makes you much more likely to stick to it. Another way to keep yourself on track, is to set reminders on your phone, such as setting a timer to go off an hour before your scheduled workout. Setting aside a specific time each day to workout will ensure habit forming behaviors that you’re more likely to maintain. Just as you have a morning and evening routine each day, carving out time in your day for health and fitness is also critical to how you will succeed in this area of your life.