How To Keep Yourself Accountable To Your Wellness Goals
What are wellness goals?
Wellness goals are exactly what they sound like, goals that are set to help you achieve better wellness. The great thing about wellness goals is that they can be tailored to your specific health and wellness desires. Whether you want to start eating healthier, or you want to start meditating more frequently, a wellness goal can be any goal that is set to help you achieve your wellness aspirations.
However, for those who have never set wellness goals for themselves before, it may be difficult to know where and how to even start your wellness journey. The best way to start is to think about the goals you have for your health and wellness. The following are just a few examples to help you start brainstorming:
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Eat better
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Reduce stress levels
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Be more fit
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Practice meditation and yoga
And while these are just a few, there are many other wellness goals you could possibly set for yourself. So once you have a wellness goal, or two, in mind the next thing to start thinking about is the positive results you hope to achieve, and your long term plan. Having a long term plan for the change you hope to make with your wellness goals is a combination of many things, and is the foundation for reaching your wellness goals.
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How to reach your wellness goals
You first need to understand the two core values when it comes to embarking on your wellness goals journey. And oddly enough, there’s actually a paradox behind these core values that needs to be unpacked even before you can understand them. This is so you can truly reach your goals, and not be confused if you do something, get results, and then feel like the results have just magically disappeared. Because we’ve all been there.
These two core values that are often times at conflict with each other are accomplishment and empowerment. And understanding that what you want to do when you embark on your wellness journey, is to find a sense of empowerment rather than a sense of accomplishment.
Accomplishment vs empowerment
Accomplishment is a feeling of consuming, like you consume something and now you’ve made it yours, it’s very outside in. Whereas empowerment is a grounded feeling energy, and it comes more from the feeling of anchoring from the inside. So you build skills and build architectures from the inside, and you get empowered. Whereas when you tweak your skills and strategies, and create your architecture from the outside, and you accomplish something that can sometimes lead to a sense of mistrust. And that sense of mistrust is that it’s going to be something that’s long lasting. Whereas when you feel empowered, you get this inner sense of trust that it will be sustainable.
You can find that inner sense of empowerment and confidence. And it’s real confidence that comes with that inner architecture being born from the inside. It’s not always easy, but finding that empowerment is the foundation to your long term wellness goals. Yet sometimes, no matter how hard you try or how empowered you might feel, you find that you’ve fallen of track of your wellness goals.
2 types of accountability needed to reach your wellness goals
Internal accountability
You first and foremost want to stay accountable to yourself, which is known as internal accountability. When no one is around to see you or acknowledge your actions, internal accountability is the little push that gets you out of bed when you’re cozy and craving that bit of extra sleep.
The tricky thing here is that some people naturally have a lot of internal accountability, while others don’t naturally have as much. Those who don’t have as much will need to practice cultivating more of this for themselves. However, even when developing a stronger sense of internal accountability, for those who don’t have as much natural, that’s where external accountability is really helpful.
External accountability
External accountability means staying accountable to others. When you know someone else is checking in with you, supporting you, and eager to hear about your progress, you almost feel a sense of obligation to follow through for them.
This external accountability is often missing from so many people’s journeys because it’s something they have to seek out and ask for, either with a friend or professional. It’s a combination of the two - internal accountability and external accountability - that has been proven to allow you to stay accountable throughout your life and reach the health and wellness goals you set for yourself.
How to stay accountable to yourself
Write down your wellness goals
Whether you’re a fan of planners and calendars or would rather a journal, writing down your goals has been proven time and time again to increase your chances of success.
When recording your health goals and ambitions for accountability, be specific and be realistic. If this is your first go at maintaining an exercise schedule, starting off by committing to seven days per week of intense exercise probably isn’t the best way to proceed. Start slowly and build your way up.
Additionally, if you’re going to exercise, what kind of exercise are you going to do? Is there a specific class you’ll take? If so, what time does the class start? The more specific you are, the clearer the message is and the easier it is to adhere to. Tangibly seeing your goals in front of you makes them real and concrete, undoubtedly increase your chances of remaining accountable.
Take it step by step
Let’s say you’ve always wanted to meal prep your meals but you just never seem to follow-through with your plans. Not only should you write down your goal of meal prepping, but also map out a schedule for when and how it will take place.
Take the time to create a schedule when you’re motivated and have decided to implement the new habit, behavior change or goal. This takes care of all of the heavy liftings ahead of time. That way, when it comes time to actually start the meal prepping, you already know what you have to do and when to start.
Be specific with your schedule; what day will the meal planning take place? Do you need to set a reminder so you don’t get sidetracked and forget? Know yourself and acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses. The more thought you put into the activity ahead of time, the more accountable you’ll be in the present moment.
Be honest with yourself
It’s easy to make excuses and rationalize your choices when you’re simply talking to yourself in your own head. Yet when things don’t go as planned or if you find yourself in a situation where you weren’t able to stay accountable, be honest with yourself.
Use that time to determine what went wrong, why you didn’t stay accountable and what you can do differently next time. We’re human, we all make mistakes. However, you should want to learn from them and move forward rather than repeat them and standstill.
Seek out the knowledge you need
In order to stay accountable and stick to your decisions, you need to have the proper knowledge. Whatever the subject may be, educate yourself so you know how to properly apply yourself. Educating yourself may involve doing some research on your own, but oftentimes your best bet is to work with a professional you can trust. Always seek out a credentialed, trustworthy individual within the given field.
How to use external accountability to reach your wellness goals
Share your goals
Whether it’s your best friend, significant other, or maybe even a workout buddy at the gym, talk to them about your goals. The more you verbalize and discuss your plans, the more responsible you will feel for accomplishing them.
The next time you’re making a lifestyle change, add a new step to your daily routine or set a new goal for yourself, tell someone else about it. And don’t forget to be as specific as possible. Tell them that you’re going to the gym at 6:00 am on Friday or that you’re trying to budget $50 per week to save up for that special trip.
Then ask them to check-in with you to see how it’s going each week or month. By both verbalizing and writing down your health and wellness goals you will feel compelled to remain accountable and see it through to the end.
Be honest with others
Once you tell someone you’re going to do something, isn’t it difficult to tell them that you didn’t actually follow through with it when they ask? This is one of the reasons why talking about your goals with others is so important for accountability.
You also need to make sure that you are honest. When things don’t quite go the way you had hoped and a friend asks why you didn’t follow through, always, always tell the truth. Be honest with them. If you were simply feeling unmotivated than say that. The more you acknowledge your weaknesses and weak points, the more likely you are to address them moving forward and prevent the situation from repeating itself. It can be difficult, but sometimes it takes setting your ego aside to reach a state of complete accountability.
How to get back on track with your wellness goals
How many times have you committed to a wellness goal, hyped yourself up and created this larger than life expectation for yourself; only to be human and then feel bad about yourself? It’s happened to a lot of us many times. But there are two very important things to understand when it comes to getting back on track with your wellness goals, that will be sure to help you reframe your perspective.
Recognizing doesn’t have to be rationalizing
It’s important to remember that these are your goals, so any type of outcome you are working towards, should be something that came from inside of you. It should be something that you feel inspired to do, it’s not an outside thing. This is the first thing that you want to connect to, that the reason that you’re feeling like you want to do this is because this is something that you want to do from a deep place inside of you. And so this becomes a recognizing rather than a rationalizing.
So If you can really connect to that deeper place, that is aligned with your higher aspiration as to why you were doing something to begin with, your recognition of your not doing it will become a reason for you to now do it.
There is no track to get on, you create the track yourself
If the question is how do you get back on track, the answer is you don’t get back on track, you create the track with your actions and your habits. You do this by doing little things everyday, even if it’s just one thing everyday, that makes you feel good. And you feel good because these little things are in alignment with your higher aspirations. You savor how that makes you feel, and then you commit to feeling that way again tomorrow, using either that action or another action.
You commit to it and you do it, and it’s nothing that’s too big or takes too much of your energy or requires you to make too much a of commitment. It’s just something that’s aligned and is in service of your higher goal, and you commit to doing it the next day at a certain time, even if it’s just for a minute. This could be journaling or meditating or yoga or drinking more water, it’s just something you want to do more of, that you feel inspired to do. That is the track you create.
So when you feel that you’ve fallen off, you can look back and see that you never actually did fall off. You just need to recognize that you’re on the track again, by remembering to feel good, and not rationalizing why you should continue to feel bad.
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When you know exactly what to do, how to do it, and when to do it, but it still just isn’t working, accountability is the last piece of the puzzle that will get you to the finish line. And whether you are setting wellness goals for yourself for the first time, or revamping old wellness goals, it’s important to remember that you are human.
Extra tips for wellness goals
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Write it down. Only schedule wellness activities you have planned to help you reach your wellness goals one day in advance every night before bed. This gives you motivation that stays fresh and in alignment with your desires.
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Start small. Don’t go all out in the beginning because you’re more likely to burn yourself out that way. If your end wellness goal is to run a 5k, start by walking everyday for 30 to 45 minutes, and slowly build up.
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Sleep. Without proper rest, your body can’t function properly and won’t have the energy to help you achieve your wellness goals. Make sure you’re getting at least 8 hours of sleep at night.
