Do you want to be happier? There are a couple of key things that you can do says Gretchen Reubin in her book the Happiness Project. One of the most important things you can do that elevates your happiness level (even if you are NOT unhappy) is to set and see progress towards a goal.
One of the biggest things our Fitness Coach’s preach and help people with is setting and attaining goals. Just making a tangible goal has been shown to increase your happiness, but nothing like the feeling of making slow and steady progress towards the goal. In fact, the process and feeling associated with the progress towards achieving brings us more happiness than the actual achievement of the goal itself.
So how do we take advantage of this fact when setting health and fitness goals (or any goals). The best way is to chart and track the steps needed to achieve the end goal. In our house we use something called the weekly register or scorecard. This is a weekly list of things that I want to do that will make me happy, help me move towards my goals and keep me on track such as working out, reading, eating healthy, going to bed on time etc. I then decide how many times I want to do per week and on what days. Each day I get the dopamine rush and satisfaction of checking off the fact that I did my 20 minute workout that day.
This weekly scorecard is a visible confirmation of the ‘goal to do list’ that needs to be done every week to achieve what I want to achieve. I have been doing it for almost 2 years now, and I credit it to changing, breaking and making countless habits over the last couple years. It has been so effective that I have enrolled my wife in the system, and now both our scorecards sit on the fridge for public accountability (which is even more effective). Even small habits such as writing in a journal or taking your vitamins works amazingly well with this system.
Each week we get a small reward for following through. I get $10 towards a new record, and Megs gets $15 towards a manicure/ pedicure afternoon away from 3 busy kids. Each of these are very motivating little rewards that keep us on track.
For a template and copy of this system outlined in more detail feel free to email me at DrRob@pricehealth.ca I love sharing the system and the many ways it can be utilized to help make and break habits over time that result in the achievement of your goals.