Before every new year, millions of people set their sights on a making plans for a fresh start in the next year. Many of these plans revolve around making goals to become more “healthy,” by losing weight, eating better or getting fit. Regardless of whether or not the goals are motivated by physical appearance, they tend to be lofty, involve fad dieting, cutting out food groups, lifestyle overhauls or restriction. Despite every good intention, because of how unrealistic these changes are in a person’s real life, by February most people will have lost steam and derailed. Harsh but true.
I am all about setting goals in life and I’m a pretty task-oriented person. But while I do believe setting goals is 100% a great thing to do for personal growth, having health as a goal doesn’t quite compute. Hear me out.
What is a goal?
By definition, a goal is “the end toward which effort is directed.” And it’s typically something we set to achieve in a certain time frame. The nature of goals is they’re either completed or not completed. If the goal is to finish a book by the end of the month and you finish the book, then you’ve completed the goal.
Why Health as a Goal Doesn’t Make Sense
So often we hear “if you want to find health, the first step is to set goals” or “how to set health goals you can actually stick to.” If the goal is to complete a 30 day fitness challenge and you complete the challenge, do you cross health off the list? Or if you successfully make three meals at home a week for X amount of weeks, are you done being healthy? The problem with health goals is health is not something you check off a list and it is not a goal.
The other big issue with health goals is the repetitive pattern: First, set goal, be motivated and have willpower. Then, lose focus, forget about it or something out of the blue happens and the goal takes a backseat. Finally, revert back to the way things were before the goal was set. And eventually plan to restart and recommit to the goal, but with more willpower. This process can be discouraging, frustrating and exhausting.
Health is more than a series of cyclical goal setting where the only thing keeping us motivated is willpower and determination – human characteristics that make us feel flawed when we believe we don’t have them. And health does not have a final destination and it is not something to achieve.
How to Get Out of the Health Goal Setting Revolving Door
So instead of thinking about health as a goal or an outcome, view it as something that holds meaning. Something to value as a life importance. Values are not something you have to set up or plan for or something to achieve and they are not temporary. Values give us direction in our lives. And when you value something it often elicits a behavior that is desired. Values are always there, and we are never done working on them.
If gratitude or kindness holds meaning in your life, you wouldn’t be thankful one time a year at Thanksgiving or be nice to a person in one moment and check gratitude and kindness off the list. And if you don’t say thank you to someone one time or don’t hold the door open for a person one time, you wouldn’t say your ability to be thankful or be kind is destroyed. Just like it’d be nonsense to say you’re finished with health when you eat a salad. While it’s also nonsense to say your health is ruined by eating a brownie. Health is more than one food, one behavior and one moment in time.
Find Meaning Behind the Process
When you value health and nutrition, it fosters an intrinsic importance to continually work on something over time and help it grow. It becomes something to nurture and take care of. It’s something that helps guide our mental processes and behaviors by providing direction for how we live our lives and take care of ourselves over time. When there is meaning behind our actions, it becomes less about what the action is, and more about the intention behind the process.
There is no endpoint to something you hold as internally important and there is no time frame. It’s something that is always available to you and something you can nurture and facilitate its growth right now and always. It’s a major mental tipping point when you transition from being concerned about achieving a goal to nurturing and fostering something that has meaning in your life. Recognizing health as a value vs. a goal can make a big impact in helping to step out of the goal setting revolving door and finding a more positive and peaceful relationship with food and health.
More Reads on Health & Diet Mindset
Diet Mentality vs. Non-Diet Mentality
Healthy vs. Unhealthy: It’s Not That Simple
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