Image by Christine Sponchia from Pixabay
Written by: Kathy Levin, RDN, CDE, LDN
Since it’s the beginning of the month, it’s a great time to make a new habit that becomes part of your daily routine.
Consistency is the key to keep on track with your nutrition & health journey. It’s also one of the most powerful tools you have. Your brain craves consistent behaviors.
Here’s a couple quick steps to take action towards creating a new health habit:
Write down “all the things” that are on your mental nutrition & health “to do” list.
Pick the one thing. Yes, I said only ONE thing. This will be the thing that you will focus on this month. Think of it as your daily goal.
Now, let’s make your one thing SMART.
Specific. What is the thing you are trying to accomplish? Not a big 360 view of a large concept. For example, saying “I want to get healthy” doesn’t tell you how. As you work on your one thing, keep asking yourself “how?” to narrow down your focus. Pro Tip: Start with narrowing it down to one of the 5 key ingredients in lifestyle medicine: eating well, moving more, managing stress, connecting with others, and sleeping well.
Measurable. How will you measure your progress? You’ll ask yourself things like: how much?, how often?, or how long? If you choose to eat well, how? Tip: I always encourage people to start with adding something to their plate instead of removing foods.
Action oriented. This is the actual thing you will be doing. For example, “I’m going to add 1 vegetable to dinner”.
Realistic. Can you accomplish your daily goal realistically? If you don’t usually eat vegetables, choosing to add 3 veggies to your current routine is just setting yourself up for failure.
Timely. Over what period of time will you do the action? Is it daily? Twice a day? Three times a week?
Which of these is the SMARTest for the next month?
A. I want to lose 20 pounds.
B. I will exercise 7 days a week for 1 hour.
C. I will add 1 whole grain at dinner 4-5 nights a week.
D. I will go for a walk when I feel stressed.
If you chose C., you are correct. Losing 20 pounds is not realistic (or safe & sustainable) in only a month and is more of an outcome. The SMART goal is how you are going to work towards it. In B, it doesn’t tell us much about what you will be doing for exercise and is not very flexible since it’s 7 days a week and may not be realistic depending on the person. D. While going for a walk might be helpful to cope with stressful situations, you want to focus on being proactive in your goal like “I will go for a 30 minute walk after work 4-5 days a week”.
Take a minute right now and make your list of all the things. Let’s call it a brain dump to free up your mind to do the work. Then, narrow it down to just one thing that you will work on for the month of September.
It’s important to rate where you are to start and end of the month. Using a scale from 0-10, zero would be you are not doing your goal at all and ten would be you are accomplishing it 100% of the time.
At the beginning of the month, starting out at 0-4 is great. If you are at an 8 or above, rework your goal to make it something a little more challenging.
At the end of the month, are you 8 or greater? Great! You’ve formed a new habit. Cue the confetti!! Our ultimate goal is to form daily habits just like brushing your teeth. Things that you don’t have to think about every day but are just part of your routine. Now, go back and choose another thing off your master list of all the things to work on for October. Rinse & repeat for next month.
Not at 8 or above? No worries. Keep working on your September goal in October. You got this! Making things become a habit is hard work. Just keep at it. You’ll get there, pinky promise.
This is the process I use with my clients to give them clarity and prevent all the overwhelm of all the things. By picking one thing to focus on, it makes it much easier to have real progress in your nutrition & lifestyle journey.
When I work with my individual clients, we complete this process each session and evaluate the previous SMART goal making tweaks when needed. At the beginning of each month during our LIVE coaching call with the members in the Plant Based Simply Sisterhood membership, we brainstorm everyone’s goal for the month. Have any questions on this process, just reach out to kathy@nutritiouslysimple.com .
Want to learn more about plant based nutrition & lifestyle medicine? Go to nutritiouslysimple.com to find out how we can work together & find tasty plant based recipes to dip your toe in the plant based waters.
