I want to share an article about goal-setting. Although the tips listed in the article were not all that new to me, it was good to read them again for reinforcement. Inside the article are links to more articles that also have good information (I recommend clicking on them).
The thing about goals is that they have to be yours. If someone else sets a goal for you, how invested will you be? If you set your own goals, clearly you want them to happen on some level. There has been so much discussion about goals in the last several years that it’s getting redundant and even boring. But goals really are important.
My high school friend had this quote in our senior yearbook: “Obstacles are what you see when you take your eye off your goal.” How true is that? Maybe you have one goal in life, for instance, to live with integrity. Or maybe you have several goals that you are working on at any given time. Goals provide motivation, and motivation helps us achieve our goals.
In diabetes management we use goals a lot. I insist, as a diabetes professional, that the people I work with set their own goals. It’s not about what I want – it’s about what they want. Figure out what your ultimate goal is (for example, “to see my granddaughter graduate from law school”) and then figure out what you have to do to make that happen (for example, “check my blood glucose daily, take a walk every morning, eat 25 grams of fiber every day”). Those smaller, daily “to-dos” are the goals you can check off every day. The big, ultimate goal is the motivator.
In the article I mentioned above, I especially like “Have grit” and “Build your willpower muscle.” I am constantly working on not overeating at night. From about 5pm to bedtime is a challenging time for me. Last night I thought about the “willpower muscle” and I exercised it! Once this becomes a habit, things get a lot easier.
Along the same line, one of the links in the article leads you to Tony Schwartz, who basically says that it all goes back to “practice makes perfect.” I believe this is true for diabetes management as well. If we keep working at it – whether that’s preparing healthier meals, checking blood glucose routinely, exercising more often or more intensively, or something else – we can get really good at it (and achieve our goals).
I increased my walking to six days a week this summer (from four). In the past two weeks I’ve started jogging, because I have a goal of running a 5K with my daughter in early November. Keep in mind that I am NOT A RUNNER. I am now up to two minutes of running! Anyway, I really think there is something to all this goal stuff.
PS I looked up the quote above, and it turns out it was by Henry Ford, but a slightly different version.