With the New Year 2022 here, many of us will have had a reflection on what we want to achieve over the coming year. Some of us will have committed to New Year's Resolutions and some of us, to a vague idea of what we would like to happen.
Setting goals is something that can help us achieve what we want. This can be for anything, but I am going to talk mostly about achieving physical goals. My goal last year was to walk some of the Great Walks. I was lucky enough to achieve that early this year.
Setting goals enables us to focus our attention on what we want and then make a plan on how to achieve it. To walk the Great walks, we had to set financial goals, physical goals and mental goals. We then had to put plans in place to allow us to achieve all those goals, which needed to be specific, measureable, achieveable, relevant and have a time-line (SMART).
Goals should be challenging but also achieveable. There is nothing worse than having an out of reach goal.
So what are your goals for 2022? Is it to walk 5km's without assistance or run an ultramarathon? It should be important and relevant to you. If it is a big goal like running an ultra, you might need to break things down to smaller goals first, eg. run 1/2 marathon, then a marathon, etc. Time-lines should be realistic - if you have never run before, then running an ultra- marathon in 6 weeks is probably not very realistic. You can also be more specific, pick a time you want to do your race in, or is it just to complete it?
In physiotherapy, we try and work with our clients to figure out what goals they want to achieve, we can then work with our clients to put a plan in place to achieve those goals. If you have a physical goal you want to achieve in 2022 and are not sure how to go about achieving it, or an injury or physical condition is preventing you or putting you off trying, come and talk to us about it. We can help you set some goals and work with you on a plan to achieve them.
Staying physically active is important for all of us, setting appropriate goals can give us the motivation to start getting active or increase our activity. Having a plan and discussing that with a heatlh professional, can allow you do so safely and help keep your goals on track.