A person’s goal is everything. The higher the goal, the more the success in what you are attempting. Because your most prized possession is your health, make it your goal to succeed in your Prescription for Life plan. Setting your goal is the single most essential thing in losing your excess weight. Without a goal, you can’t make it happen. You can memorize all the secrets concerning losing weight, but it won’t happen unless you set a goal. Reaching a goal requires both decision and commitment. A decision alone won’t get you there. Without the self-commitment, it will be a battle for naught. The other side of the coin is just as simple: if you set your goal weight and commit to it, you will reach that ideal weight.
Researchers at the RushUniversityMedicalCenter in Chicago interviewed more than twelve hundred elder adults and found something interesting concerning setting goals. They aren’t certain why, but their study found that the individuals who had goals were about half as likely to die over a five-year follow-up as those who didn’t have definite plans for their future. Yet, ninety-two percent of people never set a goal. They have “want-to- be,” “would-like-to-be,” and “wish” lists, but they never get around to actually deciding on a goal for their lives.
There is something almost magical about writing your goals down on paper. That is what I would like you to do today. Set your goals to develop the very best lifestyle possible as an individual, and write them down. Be specific about goals for the three lifestyles you can control – eating well, exercising, and losing weight. It will be yours and yours alone. Your plan will not be exactly like anyone else’s; you will fine-tune it to your personality, your body build, what you do in your life. It won’t be one size fits all; it will be customized for you.
Begin by setting major goals. These will be the goals you set for how you want to end up. Break those major goals down into intermediate goals. These intermediate goals will be more specific and to the point. These intermediate goals will give you the details of what you are going to have to do to accomplish your major goals. These are the “by such-and-such-a-date” goals.
Finally, and most important, will be your immediate action goals. These will be goals for what you will do today to set the foundation on which you will build your major lifestyle. These immediate action goals will be the ones that require action today. If you don’t act on your immediate action goals, you will never reach your major goals.
Setting goals results in positive emotions. They teach you to believe in yourself when everyone else questions your future success. Your positive mind-set will build day by day as you progress through each immediate action goal for each day. To reach your full potential, to reach your major goal of being as young as possible, you must succeed in your immediate action goals.
Those actions generate the hope that little alterations lead to big changes. You will have victory in not eating that dessert, passing up the afternoon chocolate chip cookie, and applying the ten-minute factor. Those small victories show you that the big can happen. As you achieve each immediate action goal, you realize you can succeed. You develop the habit of winning.
“Goal” photo courtesy of bplanet www.freedigitalphotos.net
