“Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible”
– Tony Robbins

📍Why Goals are Important

Establishing goals plays a crucial role in creating lifestyle changes that you can incorporate into your daily routine. Creating these goals can help motivate you to achieve the changes that you would like to see.

Goals help to narrow down big ideas to a few specific changes that you want to focus on at a time. This is more attainable than trying to change many aspects of your lifestyle at once. Having these goals allows us to change and create a better/ healthier version of ourselves.

📍Creating Goals

When designing your goals, ensure that they are realistic and achievable for you. Focus on setting smaller, manageable goals that contribute to your long-term diabetes goals rather than going for significant changes. By breaking your goals down into smaller steps, you can start to make progress and increase motivation to continue towards your long-term goals.

📍6 Achievable Goal Ideas For Your Diabetes Journey

No matter what stage you are in on your diabetes journey, there are many goals that you can take up that help you feel more confident about living with diabetes. Check out some of these small changes that you could add to your daily life:

  • Replace sugary desserts with fruit: Have grapes, or an apple for a snack instead of a cookie.
  • Increase your exercise habits: Slowly increase the amount and intensity of exercise over time.
  • Follow the diabetes healthy meal plate standards: Make sure you are getting the correct amount of non-starchy vegetables, lean protein, grains and starches, fruit, and low-fat dairy.
  • Increase daily water intake: The daily water recommendation for an adult is 2 – 3 Liters.
  • Follow medication regimen per provider’s instructions: Make sure you are taking your medication as prescribed and that you are staying on top of your refills.
  • Stop Smoking: Smoking makes your diabetes harder to manage and can cause excess complications.

goal📍Tips for Success

During goal creation, it’s important to create SMART goals. This ensures that your objective is well-structured and increases the likelihood of success. Goals that are detailed out are more achievable and motivating than those that are vague.

Smart goals should be:

  • S: Specific
  • M: Measureable
  • A: Attainable
  • R: Realistic
  • T: Timed

An example of this method with one of the goals listed above looks like:

  • “5 days out of every week, I will take a 2-mile walk around the neighborhood after dinner.”

    Creating SMART goals allows you to take control of your diabetes journey one step at a time.

Summary
Goal setting is a crucial step in self-improvement and designing a healthier lifestyle. While managing diabetes may seem daunting, setting realistic and achievable SMART goals can boost your confidence in navigating and living life with this condition. Whether it involves increasing your exercise time and intensity or substituting sugary snacks for an apple, find an achievable goal that works for you.